


Tap Bracelets

by chezchuckles



Series: Army Castle [13]
Category: Castle (TV 2009)
Genre: Eastman is in this one too, F/M, also don't forget that these two have a rather unhealthy relationship, as in obsessive, as in they both need some counseling, but they do love each other, tap bracelets are a real thing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-23
Packaged: 2021-03-25 14:01:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30090177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chezchuckles/pseuds/chezchuckles
Summary: After Beckett's brush with death, Castle needs some reassurances that he will always be able to reach her. At the same time, it finally occurs to him that she needs/deserves those same reassurances.
Relationships: Kate Beckett & Richard Castle, Kate Beckett/Richard Castle
Series: Army Castle [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1945063
Comments: 22
Kudos: 47





	1. Chapter 1

Agent Castle had a decision to make.

He had never been a fan of taxi cabs - GPS, the credit card swipes, the routes dialed in, the pick up and end points so easily cataloged. 

But Beckett couldn’t ride home on the fucking subway. She was getting out of the hospital today; she still had painkillers in her system, plus one last lidocaine block. No fucking way was he making her walk the five blocks to the subway station, suffer through the jostling crowds on the escalator and platform, be crammed into a train with fifty other people, stand for the next fifteen minutes of the ride, and then shove her way through the rush hour traffic - only to walk the last four blocks to her own place.

But a fucking taxi. Shit.

Castle put his head in his hands, rubbed his eyes. When he lifted his head, bleary and - yeah, okay, he was a little tired too - the situation room’s monitors were showing the mission already in progress.

He didn’t technically have to be at the Office today, but Beckett had gotten sick of him and kicked him out of her hospital bed.

And he’d been using his resources here to pilfer a few things he needed for the next six weeks.

Only he still had no idea about transportation.

Eastman texted him back.

So buy a damn car, Castle.

A car. Buy a car. 

Well, fucking hell. Why hadn’t he thought of that? He was grounded for the next six weeks for sure, and after that, he was reporting for duty at the Twelfth as a transfer. New detective in Homicide with her. They’d never partner him with her, but that was fine.

Probably for the best, honestly.

Buy a car.

Fucking hell, I will. Shit.

He really did have a decision to make. And he would - damn. There was no way his father would happen to overlook Castle with a car. Which meant the car couldn’t be bought with his Rodgers cover ID, since his father knew nothing about it. The Rodgers ID could never - never - be made known.

Which meant he’d have to go to his father and ask for a company car. Fuck.

Fuck.

After that scene at the hospital...

No. Okay. He could do this. Beckett was not riding home from the hospital on the subway. He needed the exact right approach.

Castle pushed back from his desk and stood up.

His father’s office was two floors down. 

Castle pulled his humility around himself like a shroud, and he made his way to the elevators, determined to stroke his father’s ego and bare his throat to John Black’s machinations.

He was going to get that damn car.

\-----

He was pretty fucking proud of himself.

She didn’t know why, but he was peacocking through her hospital room as she struggled to stand. At least he wasn’t trying to help. She’d had enough of that. Up to here. He’d managed to finally get the message, though she’d had to literally kick him out of bed to deliver it.

He finished shoving her stuff into the duffle bag, slung it over his shoulder, and took one step her direction. And then he stopped. His mouth opened. Closed. His ears turned pink.

But he didn’t say shit. Good boy.

Her feet touched the floor. Her head swam, and for an instant, she thought her knees were going to give way.

After everything, wouldn’t that be humiliating?

She gripped the railing and took a slow breath, but at that moment, the discharge nurse came through the door with an orderly. “Here we are. Door to door service.” She was smiling at Kate a little too forcefully, and the orderly pushed a wheelchair towards the bed.

“No.”

“Kate,” the nurse cautioned. She had Kate’s chart in her hands, but she looked to Castle as if for support.

Castle lifted both hands and backed away.

“I’m not riding out in a wheelchair for a broken arm,” Kate said. She really did try to keep her voice even, but the painkillers were still heavy in her system and her throat was dry and she thought maybe that had been a little too high-pitched.

She was afraid.

“You’re not afraid, are you?” Castle laughed.

She shot him a nasty look.

“Cause the guys are all out there, lining the halls to send you off, and you’re afraid they’ll think less of you for only having a cast on your arm and not something more - what? - impressive? Wow. That’s pretty twisted up even for you-”

“Shut up, Richard.” She grit her teeth and twisted around, sank down into the wheelchair. Damn stupid man. “I just want to get out of here. With some dignity intact.”

He smirked and leaned over to grab his laptop from the chair, tucking it into the side pocket of her bag. “Uh-huh. Dignity. I think you retain more dignity not tripping over your own feet as you attempt to shuffle down the hall with three people trailing after you, telling you I told you so.”

“Fuck off,” she sighed, leaning her head into her hand and rubbing her forehead.

“Yeah, you’re a delight this afternoon. But don’t worry. I’ll push,” he answered, taking over from the orderly. She kinda hated that too, but her heartbeat seemed slow, pulsing in her throat. Painkillers. She hated those too.

“Alright, Kate. I have your discharge packet right here.” The nurse opened a white folder and Kate saw a rainbow of colored pamphlets, too fast to really read it. “Rick has assured me that he’ll go over it with you again at home. But a couple things. One, cast cover goes on every single time you shower. Cast cover.” Her mock stern finger pointing was seriously fucking annoying, but she didn’t seem to realize. “And two. Do not skip a dose of either the antibiotic or the painkillers. They’re tailored specifically for you, to step you down safely.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered. “I know.”

“Good. Very good. Okay, Kate, Rick, you ready to get out of here?”

“So ready,” she sighed, rubbing her forehead again with her good hand. The broken arm was heavy over her thighs, but she was trying not to look at it. Her cast was neon green - a color Castle had chosen while she’d been fucking unconscious, and she could cheerfully bludgeon him with it.

He tugged her pony tail, and she was just enough off-balanced and weak for it to tilt her head back. Castle leaned down and brushed his lips over her forehead. “Gonna be just fine. You look badass, love. Even pale.”

She grunted, reached her good hand back to tweak his ear. “Just go. I want to crawl into my own bed and not come out for a few days.”

He lifted up, caught her hand, kissed her fingers before lowering her arm back to her lap. She scratched her forehead where he’d kissed her, where his scruff had scraped her skin, but Castle was already pushing her chair for the door.

The nurse and the orderly did trail after them, and there was a wall of blue at the exit, but she gave a brittle, flat smile and the guys crowded in and patted her back, squeezed her shoulder, walked with her all the way outside.

All the way to a sleek, two-door, black Ferrari F430.

“Holy fuck, Richard, what did you do?”

\-----

“Okay, fine,” she growled at him.

He grinned and slid his fingers higher on her thigh, cradling the steering wheel with his other hand. “Say it.”

“I am not saying it.”

“Say it.”

“Fuck off.”

“I think maybe you would rather fuck-”

“Shut up.”

He traced circles over the top of her yoga pants, soft, slow circles, and he could practically hear her grinding her teeth to hold it in. He had to remove his hand to shift, pulling away from the light, but he easily reclaimed his spot at her inside thigh - only this time quite a bit higher.

She sucked in a breath, her body held rigidly.

He was probably being an ass, making her so frustrated, but he figured the more energy she expended fighting him off, the less she had to fight him out of her apartment. He had plans, and they revolved around getting her into bed alright.

To sleep.

Though he might have to sex her up a little to accomplish that goal. No hardship, really, none at all. Convincing Beckett to-

“Fine,” she snapped. “The car is fucking hot. You better be finger fucking me now.”

He grinned, gave her a fast glance. “You win, baby. Fingers it is.”

He nudged his knuckles between her legs and she squirmed, her hips bumping up into his hand. “If I were - winning,” she growled, “you’d already be in my pants.”

“I’m working up to it, kitten. Working you up to it. Now, hush. All I want to hear is you breathing hard and making those mewling noises for me.”

“Fuck,” she breathed. “Fuck.”

He hooked a finger in the waistband of her pants and slid back and forth along the rippling skin of her stomach.

And now he heard it. That breathy, hitched sound as she tried not to want him.

Best sound in the whole fucking world.

\-----

Oh.

Oh, God.

She was-

She was going to come.

Her hips rolled up and his fingers pinched hard, and she whimpered, her head thrown back against the sinfully cradling seat, and not only could he hear the noises coming out of her mouth, she was sure he could hear the wetness between her legs as his fingers rubbed.

Slid.

Teased.

Enflamed.

“Oh, God,” she husked. He wasn’t - he was only skimming the edges, the sensitive places, the burn of her folds. “You have to - you have to-”

“That’s it, sweetheart.” The hum of satisfaction to his voice would irritate her except his fingers were entirely entirely worth it. “You’re so close, baby. Feeling you writhe against my touch, like you want to get away.”

She groaned, pressing her head back, lifting her hips. So close. She was so close. She felt it twisting, tightening-

He cupped her suddenly, hard, and then finally, finally, crushed her clit between his fingers.

She came on a gasp and arched, clumsy and awkward, off-balanced. Castle pressed her back with his arm, kept her from falling even as he wrung the last of her orgasm out of her body.

She slumped against his bicep, eyes falling shut. Melting.

The engine purred. Vibrated up through her bones, rocked her in the terribly wonderful passenger seat. 

His fingers slid up, wet along her stomach, circled at her hip. “That’s it, sweetheart, that’s it.”

She was so tired.

\-----

She could barely open her eyes when the car stopped. She felt the engine purr and cease, the vibrations stilling, leaving her skin flushed and her blood thrumming at her inside thighs. It was quiet inside, though she knew the city was busy out there.

His hand came back to her knee, warm and heavy, though he said nothing.

He said nothing.

The quiet was good. They must be parked. She wondered, idly, how close he'd managed to get to her building because the walk, feeling like this, might be beyond her.

She hated to admit it. But there it was.

Beckett opened her eyes. Turned her head to scan the street. His face. He wasn't looking at her, he was eyeing the traffic, the pedestrians, as paranoid - careful - as ever. 

He had parked a mere fifty feet from the front of her building. "How'd..."

And then she saw Mark Eastman wander up to them, hands in his pockets - a suit, an expensive pencil tie, jacket ruffled. Castle's body eased at the man's approach, and his hand squeezed her knee and trailed over the top of her thigh as he reached for the door.

Eastman had saved their parking space. Somehow. Of course.

The open door brought a blast of cool air through the warm car, and she took a chilled breath into her lungs. She was on the sidewalk side, but honestly, she couldn't find the door handle. She hadn't been paying attention when Castle had released his, and now she scanned the sleek interior and wondered if there was, instead, some kind of button.

And then Castle opened her door for her, a touch of his thumb to the button outside, and he reached in for her. In and down, down, so close to the ground that it was easy to swing her legs over and plant her feet firmly, exactly on the sidewalk (he had paralleled park with such precision that there was only a minor gap between the car and the curb and of course he hadn't scraped the wheels at all). 

Castle framed her ribs with his hands and lifted her right up like a doll, and she would have fought him, she would have, but the moment she had her own footing, she felt her legs barely catch her. Castle had already moved to grab their bag behind her seat, and she ignored the way Eastman watched her, ready to jump in and help.

She didn't need help. Fifty feet from the building. She could do that. It wasn't like she'd been shot somewhere vital; it was only her arm. Shouldn't be this difficult to surmount it.

Castle laid his hand at her back and she straightened, glanced at him.

"Got our stuff. Eastman's taking the car to a garage."

She looked over her shoulder at the beautiful, sexy car, sighed. "Can't leave that on the street, no way."

Castle chuckled. "Glad you like it."

"It's outrageous, you know. No spy should be driving around in that."

"Yeah, but a brash, reckless Army intelligence officer would." He grinned and wriggled his eyebrows at her, nudged lightly at her back to guide her. She knew her steps were slow, knew she couldn't do much more than this.

Knew he wanted them off the street, as soon as possible.

She picked up her feet, shuffling - just like he'd said in the hospital. Castle seemed at ease, no concerns, not hustling her, but she saw the way his gaze sharpened, the glances at the other side of the street, the hard and narrow set to his eyes.

Six weeks of this. She might actually kill him.

"Go on ahead of me," she told him. "Get off the street-"

"Don't be stupid."

She growled and elbowed him, though she was frustrated with how little power went into it. This was even her cast side, but it was like the cast weighted her down, dragged at her shoulder all day until she could barely lift it.

His fingers made a strange, caressing gesture at her back and then he dropped his hand. Leaving her to it. She thought he would stride forward then, but he didn't do that either. He stayed right at her side until they reached her building.

"If you don't mind, the back," he murmured.

"Is there - something going on?" she said finally. The prick of awareness was now diffusing through her skin, as if delayed. "Someone's watching us."

He made a noise under his breath. 

"Shit. Vulcan Simmons's people," she sighed.

"Possibly so," he said lightly. No stress in his voice. "Eastman has the car, at least. I have you."

"Me."

He did a very obvious glance over their shoulders and his gaze went feral. Just that fast she was walking beside a spy, an assassin, who had trained her so well she had escaped execution with merely a broken arm.

Her breath caught. Castle's face came sharply towards her. "I see him. Not to worry. I'll deal-"

"No," she snapped. She had stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and even through her instant anger, she knew enough to start walking again. 

Castle had very definite lines in the sand. And this was one of those. Never hinder the mission.

And his mission right now was to get them both inside safely. He clucked his tongue at her for the hesitation - or maybe for the immediate movement forward afterwards - and his hand came to her elbow.

"I will take care of the surveillance, Beckett. Not the man. Even I know that's too risky."

"There's a switch," she muttered, but she let him usher her towards the back entrance - the side really - where the lobby angled into an narrow entryway that she only used when she wasn't going to the precinct.

So, never.

Castle apparently used it all the time. He had the key code and the fob for the interior door, and she knew for certain she'd never given him either.

"Damn spy," she muttered.

"Mm-hm." His murmur sounded entirely too pleased but she was still walking that fine line between satiated and exhausted, and the addition of a man outside watching her was distracting enough to find Castle a necessary nuisance.

"Did you get a good look?" she said then. "Because I should probably have you look at mugshots to-"

"There were two. One of them was not Vulcan's man," he said tersely. "It was one of his."

John Black. Her heart leapt in her throat, pulsing wildly, and Castle reached across and gripped her elbow, slid his arm around her waist as they climbed the stairs.

She got her feet under her again, but she needed his help to keep moving. If she'd done this alone, she might have sat down on the landing and taken a breath. Not with him.

On her floor, he released her, stepping away with a brush of fingers, a nudge of her hair out of her face and behind her ear. He always had to touch. Like he thought she wasn't real unless he could always come back to the physicality of her.

"Come on," he murmured. "We have some time before I need to handle this. And with Black's man out there, we can be assured that Simmons's goon won't even get close."

Could they? She wasn't sure. She knew Castle kept circling back to the trust he had in his father's project, that Black would never jeopardize Castle's life just to get rid of her. But there had been so many times when Castle's various 'tests' could have ended his life.

She didn't trust that Black's agent would protect them from Vulcan Simmons. Not one bit.

Castle unlocked her door and she finally stepped inside, home, closing her eyes just in the entryway.

At least inside her apartment, with the security cameras Castle had long ago installed and the trip wires on the windows and doors, they could be assured they would see it coming.

\-----

"No. I'm not - I'm just tired," she sighed at him.

She was swaying on her feet, her face was pale, washed out. Castle dropped the bag and instead drew his arms around her, the cast hard between them. He cradled her against him in a soft embrace, trying not to be overbearing, as she'd called him, wanting only to give her a moment's rest.

There was no way in hell she'd let him carry her back to the bedroom. He wouldn't even try to help her down the hall. He knew better. But he released her reluctantly, slowly, and cupped her face in his hands, kissed her. Not chastely either. She'd never forgive him for that.

Her moan had her curling into him again before she finally straightened up. "I'll be fine here," she said. "Just gonna sleep. You go - do whatever you have to do."

He nodded, let her think he would at all leave her. If she thought he'd been gone the whole time she slept, then she was more likely to be welcoming when she was awake.

He would have to keep himself from crawling into bed with her. He'd gotten away with it while she was in too much pain and too much drug haze to know better, but not any more.

Castle stepped back and she turned, a hand out to the wall for balance. He did, however, watch her as she made her way, not caring one bit if she knew he was either. When she was safely ensconced - and she'd shut the door on him too - he turned for her bag and began unpacking things, though he would hold off on putting it away until she was truly asleep.

He did replace her shampoo and soap in the shower caddy, her toothbrush and comb. He left the clothes on top of the hamper, a reminder to himself to get her laundry done later, and then he stacked the clean items on the edge of the sink.

He folded the duffle bag, put it back in the closet.

And then he made his way to his own bag, the one he'd filled with items at the Office this morning. Equipment. His father had said nothing about the appropriation of property, and Castle needed to go over all of it to be sure there were no CIA tracking devices. It would be just like his 'tight-ship' father to GPS tag every damn piece he spent budget on.

Castle settled at the dining room table, spread out the equipment: receiver, two trackers, a compact parabolic mic (though he couldn't see needing it yet), two additional weapons (the .22 for her, in case, and the .45 for him), and finally the matched distress bracelets.

Slim, fitted, the cuffs were made to look like jewelry. Hers was brown leather, the digital component cleverly sewn between the two pieces. It was strongly magnetic, which was how the battery stayed charge, and it made the cuff fit snugly around the wrist. An extra clasp, not magnetic, ensured it would not come off.

While she slept, he was going to clasp it around her good wrist. With her arm in its awkward cast, there was no way she had the fine motor coordination to release it.

He minutely inspected both bands, but there was no way to insert any kind of devices - unless it had been done at manufacture. He went ahead and clasped the one-inch black cuff to his own wrist and manipulated his hand to be certain he had free range of motion, and then he activated the band.

Pressing firmly on the top, what would be the face of a watch, the twin leather band vibrated once on the table.

Perfect.

She might protest, but it would come in handy as a way to get his attention should he be in another room and she needed something. Most importantly, it stilled the terrible, urgent panic that had been churning in his guts since he'd gotten the phone call from her sergeant. 

And thought she'd been killed.

He would always be able to reach her this way. Even if she never buzzed him back. She would at least know he was able to be reached.

\-----


	2. Chapter 2

She woke vaguely, without orientation, to the feeling of the mattress dipping under her. Her eyelids were too heavy to open, but she rolled into the presence at her side and curled into warmth. Heat. The constant discomfort began to ease as her body relaxed, but something was nudging her back, away.

"Roll over, love. Easier this way."

She grunted, Castle shifting her to her left side. But it was easier, her shoulder pressed between her own body and the pillows, her casted arm crooked at her chest, her uninjured arm able to balance her against the mattress. Almost lying on her stomach, a knee drawn up, and now she found the support she needed, just the right amount of it, to let her relax.

Castle fumbled at her good hand, and she curled inward with him, felt him come around her, a buttress at her back. He sighed softly, as if resigned, but she was too tired to move now.

His arm slowly worked under her pillow and the extra lift kept her from lying too hard on her bruised shoulder. She sank into his heat, his body, and felt his fingers circle her wrist, holding onto her. 

He didn't let go. She was just aware enough to fight to stay, to keep her mind sliding through helpless and uncontrolled thoughts so she could rest in it.

His body. The hard wall of his chest, the warm softness of his skin over it. His thighs tucked under hers, at her backside, the perfect sling. Sleeping with him was always easier than sleeping alone, and he was here so infrequently that she never deprived herself if she could help it. 

She always did this, half-submerged and half-awake, constantly pricking her own attention to stay right here and feel it. Feel him. 

memorize him

She loved it. Missed it when he was gone. Woke to dreams that buoyed for a moment before the solitary darkness crashed her that much further down. Not today. Not today. Today she was collapsed into him and he held her up.

"Thought you had to go," she slurred.

"Did," he whispered. "You've been asleep for longer than you know."

She stirred, but he held her.

"You okay if Cujo jumps up?" he murmured. 

"He here?"

"Mark brought him, after he moved the car."

"S'okay," she mumbled. A sharp gesture as Castle released her for a moment and then the bed bounced as the weight of the dog landed. On her legs. She huffed, amused, tired, worthless, and Cujo stepped over her into the narrow space between her and the edge of the mattress and he whuffed into her neck.

She opened her eyes.

"Hush, Cujo. Lie down," Castle said, reaching a hand for the dog's leather collar. Studded, of course, because Castle had brought it back from Italy, along with the leash and its wrist cuff that could be snapped easily off and on at her wrist or at the dog's collar.

Stupid gorgeous collar for his stupid wonderful dog.

Cujo didn't want to go, and it was a minor tug of war before Castle lifted up and grabbed the dog around the legs like a shepherd with a lamb, hauled him over and down by Castle's knees.The wolf in him rose his hackles, snapped his teeth, but Castle snapped back and Cujo sank down to his haunches, down once more to his front legs, and finally rested his head on Castle's stacked ankles.

"Fine, that's fine. Just don't bother Kate," Castle said. He was petting the dog too, and Kate shifted a little to her back to watch the dog's eyes close under the love.

She knew the feeling. Stupid dog. Stupid spy.

Castle laid back down with her, nudged his way at her back once more, pushing her forward. She knew Cujo wouldn't stay down there; he liked to lie body to body with her when he slept in the bed. Some nights he didn't want anything to do with the bed, and its mattress and comforter and sheets and her restlessness. Others he came right up against her.

"Back to sleep, Kate," Castle was humming in her ear. "Sleep. Dinner in a few hours, being delivered."

She stirred but couldn't move, couldn't. His arms were around and under her, wrapping her up again, so that she could barely feel the cast, barely feel anything.

His fingers around her wrist, the pressure of his grip. Somehow, as she felt her own pulse thud through her wrist, she didn't mind it at all. She liked feeling contained.

\-----

When the dog lifted his head and jumped from the bed, Castle began extricating himself from Kate. He knew it was coming, and he had managed to prop Beckett up with the body pillow when the buzzer sounded at the apartment door. 

Kate flinched, he took a moment to squeeze the back of her neck in reassurance, and then he hurried out of the bedroom. 

Cujo was pacing before the door and when he saw Castle, he came running as if he needed to guide his master to the problem. Cujo was wagging his tail though, excited for the man he could already sense behind the door, and Castle reached down to muzzle the dog while he flipped open the locks.

Cujo woofed low in his throat between Castle’s grip, welcoming Eastman on the other side of the door. Mark came forward with a overloaded plastic takeout bag, handed it off to Castle without greeting, and bent down before the dog instead.

Castle let Cujo go free - with a stern warning of his name - and to his credit, Cujo didn’t bark. He did whuffle into Eastman’s face, licking his chin and cheeks, but he backed off, tail still wagging in excitement.

“Good dog,” Castle praised, shifting the food in his hands so he could reach down and scratch behind Cujo’s ears. In a sudden fit of affection, Cujo whined and pressed into Castle’s legs, seeking more attention, more of Castle’s petting.

“Shit, Castle. Your dog misses you.”

“Shut up,” he muttered, ears burning as he knelt before the dog. He put the food on the counter and rubbed the dog’s ears, his neck, under his chin, scratched through the poor thing’s body, patting him down.

“Your dog misses you, your girl misses you too.”

He groaned and butted heads with Cujo. “Shit.”

“Just saying.”

“Don’t be nasty. I’m here now. Six weeks of recovery for her and then-”

“Detective of the NYPD. You sure you want to do this?” Eastman sank back against the counter and crossed his arms. “She’s gonna murder you.”

“Yeah, but you just said it. If the damn dog is taking it where he can, then-”

“She’s taking it where she can?”

Castle glared up at his partner, narrowing his eyes at the man. “She better not be.”

Eastman shrugged. “You are gone a lot.”

“You were supposed to have been keeping up-”

“If she fucked someone else, I wasn’t gonna tell you.” Eastman relaxed, his face smooth. “Doesn’t matter now, you’re here.”

His guts flipped inside out. “Did she?” he husked.

“If you don’t trust her with that, Richard, then that’s a different problem.”

“No, I trust her,” he husked, but he glanced to the dog. The dog who had latched on to the Eastmans and Jim and Beckett because they were actually here, dependable. “I trust her.”

“This is a shitty conversation, and not what I intended. Look, I brought your dinner. Wake her up, eat, I think all of us need to talk about the things going on outside.”

Castle scraped a hand down his face, rose to his feet. Cujo twined between him and the counter, circled Eastman, and then came back around to Castle. 

“I don’t know that I should wake her,” he said. “She’s been so exhausted and she won’t rest-”

“Castle,” Eastman said suddenly. “Listen to me. You start taking over decisions about her life that she should be making, that she has been making for years now, you’ll be kicked out before you can say spit.”

He lifted an eyebrow at the expression, but it was mostly to deflect the shame of that truth.

He always did this. Took over. Invaded. She didn’t like it, she hated it, she hated him for it, and he needed to keep it contained to the sex because at least there she had the chance to do the same to him.

“Yeah,” he nodded finally. “I’ll go wake her. Will you - uh - set everything out?”

“Will do.” Eastman straightened up, gave Castle a long look. “Never mind about what I said before, Richard. You two have had three years. You trust her. She’s here - she’s always here - when you find your way back to her. So. Leave it be.”

He would. He could. He could let it go, whatever Eastman had been vaguely hinting at, because it wasn’t now. It wasn’t here. It wasn’t what they were.

It had been three years. She hadn’t - if she had - it had been so long ago, it meant nothing at all. Because he knew her. He knew her. She wouldn’t be able to carry that if it was, in fact, something to carry.

\-----

“Doesn’t matter if you did, doesn’t matter at all, baby.”

Kate grunted as his voice penetrated her fog; she cracked open an eye and found him kneeling at the side of the bed, stroking the hair back from her face. She felt like shit and she had that metallic taste in the back of her mouth from all the antibiotics, and why the fuck was Castle petting her?

“Get off,” she muttered, trying to knock him away. But her cast was heavy and it glanced off his wrist and he drew back. She was instantly awake, reaching for his arm. “Sorry, shit, sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

“Mean to what?” he asked. All the color had left his face. “You didn’t mean to what, Kate?”

She fumbled at his arm, the fingers of her injured hand reaching for him as well, wakening the ache in her bones. “Hit you. Forgot the cast. It’s heavy, and I know it hurts. I’m-”

His face cleared and he laughed. “Naw, baby, I’m fine. Didn’t even notice. You up for some dinner?”

She swallowed thickly, her tongue fuzzy. “I could... something.”

“Mark sneaked us in some takeout-”

“Chinese or pizza?”

He grinned. “Chinese.”

She curled her good hand at his forearm and used him to leverage herself up in the bed. “I can always do Chinese.” A little Chinese anyway. Mostly water, get the nasty taste out of her mouth. A piece of gum. Something.

“Good girl-”

“Don’t pet me like the dog, you asshole.”

He laughed, grabbing her by the elbow and slinging an arm around her waist and hauling her up before she could even try it. “Yes, dear.”

“Oh, God, you did not. Don’t you think you have enough stupid pet names, Richard?”

His lips were twitching. She was dizzy with pain meds and her mouth tasted nasty and he looked like he wanted to kiss her. She could cheerfully strangle him. Again.

“Let me go. I have to pee.”

“Do you need-”

“If you so much as cross the threshold of that bathroom, I will fuck you up.”

His hand moved to cover his groin, body hunching. “You’re brutal. Bathroom is off-limits. Got it.”

She eyed him, pretended she wasn’t still leaning on him for support just to stand, and she carefully dragged her fingers down his stomach, over his belt, and around his protective clutch. His face wiped clean of amusement just that fast, and she laced her fingers through his to cup him.

“I lashed out,” she whispered, nudging in closer. Touched her lips to his jaw to avoid him trying to kiss her with this nasty taste in her mouth. She caressed his cock through the material of his pants and he let out a stuttering breath. She smiled at his skin. “I should never have kicked you.”

“You - should never?”

“Not here.” She used their joined hands to press against him, felt the way he stirred for her. “My most favorite part.”

He let out a strangled noise and gripped her hand, his other arm up coming up fast to hook around her neck. He pulled her against him and she was rocked off balance, but their hands remained.

She caressed him slowly, nosing in against his neck. “Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. Or fucks you in this case.”

“Shit,” he croaked. “You did hear me mention that Mark Eastman is in your kitchen right now.”

She jumped back, couldn’t go very far with him pinning her. “You did not say that, Richard Castle. He’s here. What the fuck?”

“He brought dinner.”

“You said that. You did not say he was eating with us. Fuck. Let me go to the bathroom and - shit - my hair is a rat’s nest-”

“Naw, you look sexy.”

She gave him a dark look. “While it’s true that when we have one of our sex marathons, I wind up pummeled like this, I do not intend to go out there looking like I can’t drag my ass out of bed.”

“You can’t drag your ass out of bed after our sex marathons?” He was grinning, all pleased and puffed up. “Fucked so well you can’t walk straight - that’s my-”

“You’re an ass,” she muttered, slapping her cast against his gut before she could think better of it.

Ouch.

Shit.

That hurt.

\-----

When Beckett came out of the bathroom, she was holding up her uninjured arm and stalking right for him. Her hair was twisted into a knot at her nape but it was falling apart; she must not have been able to tie it back. But her face was absolutely pissed.

Not livid. But definitely irritated as fuck with him.

“What the fuck is this, Castle? I go to wash my hands and there’s this - this - shackle - on my wrist. And I can’t even get it off, you asshole.”

He had been reaching for her while she spoke, but he paused. “But you did wash your hands, right?”

“Fuck you.”

“You did, right? Because-”

“You don’t get sick,” she mocked. “Don’t try to change the fucking subject. What is this.”

“A surprise,” he said, putting on his most guileless smile. “A present from the CIA.” He caught Eastman rolling his eyes as he dug into the lo mein, and Castle shifted to keep him out of Beckett’s eyesight.

Of course Eastman knew exactly what it was.

“A present,” she said coldly. “I don’t need you buying me things, Richard.”

“I didn’t buy it,” he said, shrugging. That was true at least. “I appropriated it.”

“Castle,” she sighed. She suddenly looked wiped. Her arm dropped and she slumped towards the kitchen bar, sank onto a stool. “Just get it off.”

“Later,” he said quickly. “First we need to talk about the situation.”

She straightened up, already distracted from the leather cuff she hadn’t been able to remove by the very real issue outside. She was glancing at Eastman, so Castle moved to fill up a plate for her, hoping to slide it under her radar.

“Mark, fill her in.”

Beckett drew a knee up into the chair, gave Mark her full attention. Castle dished out Chinese as fast as he thought he could manage while Eastman gave her a sit-rep.

“You have two distinct teams sitting on your place right now, but only one of those followed you from the hospital. Ours.”

“Yours. You mean Black’s.”

Eastman shrugged, sinking down onto a stool beside her, digging in with his fork. “All the same.”

“No. It is not all the same,” Castle growled.

Kate cut her eyes to him in that be silent message he got often from her. This time he heeded it, scooping teriayki chicken onto her plate. 

“The only concern I see is that the guys are working tandem-”

“Wait,” Castle said, swiveling his head. “What? My father sent two?”

“I said team, did I not?”

“But I thought you were just...” He trailed off, a cold feeling chasing down his spine. “I saw Mitchell, point blank. Who else is out there right now?”

“Not Mitchell,” Eastman, gave a swift look to Beckett as if telling Castle, be silent.

He shut up, but Kate sat up straighter. “It’s Deleware. Isn’t it.”

“Fuck,” Castle muttered, sliding the plate across to Kate. He added a fork and then started making up his own plate, distractedly pleased when she automatically began to eat. “Deleware. I fucking told him to never-”

“Like that would sway him,” Beckett muttered. “And anyway. It’s not a thing. He doesn’t scare me. He’s easy enough to take on.”

“For me to take on,” Castle warned her, jabbing a serving spoon her direction. “You will not be taking on anyone but me, Beckett.”

“I’ve already taken you on. And won. So fuck off.”

“I will fucking handcuff you to your bed. Don’t test me.”

She held up her wrist and waved the leather cuff in his face. “Is that what this is for?”

“Keeps your wrist from getting chafed,” he said easily, right into the fabrication. “Don’t say I don’t look out for you, baby.”

“You’re a fucking-”

“You’re the only one I’m fucking. At least there’s that.” He knew it was a little too much just by the look on her face, and he realized it was that shit Eastman had alluded to that was fucking him up right now. He was off his Beckett game.

But she flared right back at him. “You think I’m going to spread my legs for you after you fucking handcuff me to the bed?”

“It’s been known to happen, Beckett.” He wriggled his eyebrows. “More than a few times. More like every time.”

“Because I fucked you first,” she snapped back. “You really do fall apart when I-”

Eastman cleared his throat. “I know fucking and - whatever this is, eye-sex? - is your love language, but can we get back to the situation going on out there?”

Beckett shut down so fast his throat closed up. But he shook his head and leaned a hip against the counter. “Careful, Eastman. Can’t say ‘love’ around Beckett. Gives her hives.”

She shot him a baleful look, but there was quite a lot of panic behind her eyes.

Eastman snorted. “Allergic to commitment or allergic to you, Castle?”

Thank you, Eastman, for that somewhat backhanded save.

“Mostly him,” Kate answered, jabbing her fork his direction. She was shoveling the food into her mouth now, probably to give her something to do other than beseech him with her eyes.

Don’t say it, don’t say it. More iterations on be silent. Be cool.

He knew how to play her game, but playing her game had left her feeling alone in this, unsupported, cut off from him. He had heard it out of her own mouth, albeit drugged to the gills; he had heard her beg him to stay.

“That’s fine,” he answered finally, looking at the top of her head. “Because I’m not. Allergic that is.”

Her eyes lifted, a swift, darting glance as if she had to see his face to know. When she saw him watching her already, she lifted an eyebrow. “That’s only because you don’t get sick.”

He sighed, stabbed his fork into the chicken on his plate. “No, Beckett, I don’t get sick. You’re right.” He refused to look at her, refused to let that face be the image he had of her when he’d made a pretty gutsy step forward. Her closed off, snarky, you’re nothing to me face.

She had been shot. She had been millimeters from a bullet to the face. He would not soon get over that.

If ever.

“Who else is out there beside Black’s men?” Kate said quietly. “Besides Deleware, whom we can handle. Castle can handle.”

He glanced at her, saw her looking at him. It wasn’t an apology because she didn’t do apologies, but it was something.

“It’s two of Vulcan’s enforcers,” Eastman answered. “But those are more of the same. I’m pretty sure they’re not looking to kill you - that would be a little too obvious - but they would probably like to fuck you up.”

Castle flinched. “We need a plan for dealing with Vulcan Simmons. He’s gone to ground, because of the shooting-”

“Because I was an idiot,” she muttered, scrubbing her good hand down her face.

He ignored that. “And he won’t pop his head up for Beckett. He’ll send his guys, but he’s got endless guys, and my hands are tied with this one.”

“I don’t want you handling him,” Kate said fiercely. “That is not up to you, not your mistake that got me here.”

“Beckett-”

“No. No, this is mine. I’ll figure it out. Besides, you’ll be gone and I’ll have to handle it anyway.”

“I won’t be gone-”

“Castle,” she said, waving him off. “I know it’s not forever. But I have to do my job. You do yours, I do mine, remember?”

He sighed and glanced down to his plate. He still hadn’t found a way to break the news to her that very soon her job would be his job.

\-----


	3. Chapter 3

With Eastman grounding them both, they hammered out a faint plan for Vulcan's men that would have the added benefit of making Black's team scarce too. Not for good, but for long enough. While Beckett wasn't happy about it - at all - calling in the Twelfth was really their only option. And the fact that Castle had to do it...

Whatever. She couldn't see another way, no matter how fast she talked. Eastman was calm, and he talked slowly, and it made her listen, made her stop reacting, stop flaring up, and actually think about it.

She was slumped on the couch when Castle made the call. Eastman had left them after dinner, a good-bye to Cujo who had jumped up here with her after. She was curled around the dog, using the arm of the couch to prop up her cast, but she refused to look at Castle while he talked to her captain.

"Yes, sir, I'm not sure I'm supposed to be doing this, but I thought you'd want to know." So agreeable, so humble, but his voice still held that unmistakeable air of authority, a man used to giving orders.

But he wasn't that man, was he? Who did he have to order around? He wasn't in the military, he was a covert agent on his father's payroll, in his father's pocket. The only one he ordered around was her.

He played the part too well. "Yes, sir. Well, you know I'm Special Forces. It wasn't hard to spot them. They're not trained really. But I thought it'd be best, in light of her-" Castle stopped; she could see him nodding out of the corner of her eye. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that. I'll tell her. What? Oh, yes, sir, she's doing alright. She's been sleeping, which is good. Yes, sir. I will do my best."

He ended the call and she buried her nose in Cujo's fur, sighing. Of all the damn luck. If Castle hadn't rushed to get his mission squared away, if she hadn't told him over their last phone call that she'd made it to Homicide prompting him to hurry back to celebrate, he wouldn't have been here for this. He wouldn't be finagling his way into every damn aspect of her professional life.

It was enough that he was locked onto her personal. Wasn't it? Fucking around in her professional life wasn't okay, but she was stuck. He had already shown up, he had already shaken hands with her Vice sergeant (who had retired immediately after Castle had arrived, and it was weird, but he was at the right age and she'd always hated him, but she couldn't shake the feeling that things were going on behind her back.)

"Captain Montgomery's going to send a car around to check. Every few hours he said. At least they won't be sitting on the place."

She glanced up and saw Castle settling on her coffee table, elbows on his knees, looking grave. 

"I guess that's good," she sighed.

"Best we got," he admitted. "Sorry, babe. I know it's not how you like to get things done. Give it six weeks and you can go after him."

"I - have no evidence," she confessed. "My Vice sergeant was the one who knew - anything at all about Vulcan. My research all pointed his way, and my gut says he was probably on the take early in his career. I don't know about the last decade or so. There was a massive cleansing in the NYPD like twenty years ago and he might have straightened up."

"Your sergeant was the one," he said, watching her. "Yeah, you told me that in the hospital. I - uh - I talked with him a little because he was concerned about you. He seemed, I guess, guilty."

Guilty. For giving her Vulcan's information, where to find the man. "He has reason to be guilty."

"I didn't convince him to retire," Castle said suddenly. "That wasn't me. I thought Eastman might have pulled some strings, but I just found out from him that he didn't do it either."

She lifted her head, stunned he was even telling her this much. He always worked behind the scenes, never let her in on the whole. "You didn't do it," she breathed. "You're telling me you would have, you thought you were doing it."

"But I didn't. It came down from Montgomery. That's what Eastman is hearing. Your Vice sergeant was called into his office and the blinds were closed and when he came out, well, he announced his retirement a couple hours later."

"Because of me?" she gasped. "Because I did something stupid and got shot-"

"No, listen, love. Think it through for a second. Who else knew that you went to your sergeant with this?"

"No one." She opened her mouth to explain and instead the pieces fell together. "No one knew he led me there. No one knew he was involved."

"You told me in the hospital, so it's possible you said something to-"

"No," she said, shaking her head. "I don't talk about my mom's case. Not with anyone. Never."

"But me," he murmured.

She stiffened. "You forced your way in."

"You told me about her that very first week, sweetheart. You can't rewrite our history. You trusted me with it, and I know I jumped in, and you had every right to kick me out, you did. I'm not disagreeing. But we're farther along than we've ever been. You've ever been."

She grit her teeth and stared down at the dog, trying to find an argument for that. For how he kept fucking up her life. But she had told him first. "I was only trying to scare you off. You were too - clingy. You still are."

"Speaking of me being clingy." He nodded to her wrist - her good arm - and she glanced down.

The leather cuff. "More presents. Castle. What have I told you about-"

"It's not entirely a present. It's more like a present for me."

She lifted her head. "What?"

"Um. I have one too," he said and lifted his arm, pushed back his sleeve. So that was why he'd been wearing that damn Army shirt. So the sleeves would hide it. Black leather cuff in exactly the same style as the one on her wrist.

"You got us matching cuffs. What the fuck ever for, Castle? I don't do matchy-matchy-"

"No, it's - ah, it's CIA equipment."

Equipment. She glanced down at the brown leather, moved her casted arm as if to do something with the cuff. But she couldn't. Her fingers wouldn't move that well, she couldn't get to the damn cuff.

"Beckett, it's usually for tandem field operatives. Sending coded signals." He grimaced and fiddled with the leather cuff on his wrist and suddenly a vibration buzzed lightly along the surface of her skin.

"What the fuck," she gasped, jerking her arm up. Her fingers grazed ineffectually at the leather and it gave another short burst of vibration. 

Her heart was racing.

"You can do it back," he said. "The face of the bracelet, at the top. Press against it and it sends a burst to mine. Field operatives have a kind of morse code for their signals. We could do-"

"No." Her lungs were tightening. "No, get it off."

"No."

"Castle."

"I can't," he husked. 

"What do you mean you can't? Get a fucking key."

"No, it's - just a clasp but I won't take it off. I'm sorry."

"You're sorry? Stop fucking around, Castle. I don't want this. I'm not playing stupid spy games with you. I'm not letting you buzz me for the next six fucking weeks. Take it off."

His head dropped, a hand scraping down his face. He suddenly looked - so weary of her. So done. "Don't make me," he rasped. "I don't think I could - this is the only way I'm not absolutely losing it, Beckett. Vulcan Simmons better keep his head down for the rest of his fucking life because I will cut his throat out for what he did to you."

She gaped at him.

His eyes came up to her face. So bleak. "If you have that on, I know you're alive. Well. If you - only if you tap me back. I... admit a lot of my peace of mind is riding on you, but when isn't it?" He closed his eyes and his head, spoke as if to himself. "When is it not. Damn."

She swallowed hard. "I'm not - doing this with you, Castle. We're not doing this."

"I'm sorry. But this is - necessary."

"Castle," she hissed. She had never - he had never said no to her. Not like this. "It's my fucking body. What the hell."

"I won't remove it."

"Then give me a couple weeks and I will," she snarled. Already, she used her injured arm to bring her aching fingers to the cuff, scratching at the clasp. It was a tight place in her chest, this damn - his face, his eyes as he-

His hand came around her wrist, dislodging her grip. "You're only going to hurt yourself. It won't come off. The clasp is complicated, made to not dislodge during field operations."

"Castle," she panicked. "Castle. Stop. Don't-"

"I can't." He was rigid. "I can't." His chest heaved with a breath as if he'd been holding it. "Don't make me."

"Castle."

He leaned in, one hand still gripping her wrist too tightly, and he grabbed her by the back of her knee, dragged her forward. She gasped, jerking, but she couldn't fight his strength. She couldn't get control back.

He pulled her right into his lap and up into his arms, standing before she could make a move. She squawked, indignant - scared - confronted with a man she didn't - didn't want. She didn't want this. He couldn't do this to her, make them linked, have them tied together like this. Like that day in the ethnic grocery store, the bag of potato cakes in his hand, the way he had suddenly grabbed her, self-defense moves as if he'd needed to protect himself.

From her.

Her heart was pounding. This man - this side of him - fuck, yes, it scared her. "Castle, stop. Put me down. You have to put me down."

He was carrying her back to the bedroom, completely ignoring her, and she tried to wedge her casted arm between their bodies. She only managed to bruise her own ribs. He didn't stop, right into the bedroom, dumping her to the mattress.

She landed on her ass, caught herself with one good arm, gritting her teeth at the jar in her bones.

He came down after her, his words wooden and stiff. "You will use it. I have to know that I can - that you can reach me. Wherever. I have to know."

"It's not up to you," she growled, kicking at him as he started peeling off her leggings. "Castle."

"All you have to do is press the top, and I'll know. You don't have to say anything. You don't have to call me."

"I don't call you. You always fucking call me."

"I know it's not fair. I know I never gave you the chance to have the same reassurance, but I didn't see it before now. I didn't understand-"

"I don't understand. Get the fuck off me."

He yanked her leggings down and off, his body still heavy at her side, lying half on top of her. Her heart was racing, legs pinned, her hips shifting.

Fuck, why was she so wet? "Get off, Castle. Fucking hell. This is not-"

"I'll make it worth your while, Beckett. I promise. Anything you want." His fingers slipped into her panties and she arched, moaning. "Anything at all. All you have to do is touch the bracelet. It's like a bell. Say the soap falls in the shower, or you need a glass of water, or a pain pill - you just touch it."

"And what?" she growled. "You'll touch me back?"

His fingers curved up, hard, and penetrated her sex. She gasped and grabbed for him, hooked the cast at his neck so that it jostled pain through her body. He pumped his fingers inside her and she cried out, already so worked up, already on edge.

"I'll touch you back. I'll make it up to you. Apologize with my mouth, my fingers, my body." He whispered the words into her neck as he sucked lightly at her skin. "It's like a sex toy, Kate. Just for you."

"This isn't okay," she gasped. But, fuck, it was so so okay. So good. She hadn't realized just how wound tight she'd been, how needy. In the hospital, she remembered begging him for it. Begging.

"It's not okay at all," he groaned. He was rubbing his thumb at the side of her clit. "But I won't be able to step a foot outside your bedroom without it. And I know for fucking sure that kind of not okay will kill us faster than a bullet."

"Fuck," she gasped, working her hips into his touch, faster, harder. "Rick."

"Please," he whispered. "Please, sweetheart. Please. If you - have any kind of - if you regard me at all, please. Please."

She came apart on a hoarse cry, contracting hard around his fingers, the searing white of pain and pleasure obscuring him from view.

\-----

She was still arched with the peak of her climax when he unbuttoned his jeans, yanked the zipper down. Her throat contracted, her moan spilled out, and he took himself out of his boxers.

He needed nothing more than the feel of her warm thighs against his cock and he was plowing into her.

She cried out, eyes opening wide. He fucked her. He knew he was, he knew it wasn't okay, but there was nothing to be done about it. There was no choice. 

None.

If he didn't do this, she would be dead the next chance she got to go after her mother's case. She would be dead. And he would be somewhere else, unknowing, and yet his heart dying in a damn warehouse or a fucking drug house, his heart bleeding out into nothing.

She tightened her arm around his neck and his forehead crashed into hers. Her breath was hot and fast against his open mouth, her tongue touched his lips. He fucked her, driving into the narrow space of her sex, her thighs pressed together and restrained by his own body. She moaned into his mouth and shuddered, and her climax contracted around them both, tugging.

But he wasn't done. It wasn't over. He needed too much. His heart had been ripped out of his chest, and if she was going to take it, if she was going to be walking around out there with it, no back-up, no thought for self-preservation, if she was going to secretly desire obliteration, he was going to demand more.

He struck so deep. Her body's tightness resisted him, made everything teeth-grinding agony. Fucking her was work, loving her was work, and he had damned well stop phoning it in. 

She keened his name and came a third time, and he couldn't let go, he still couldn't let go. How many minutes now, how long had he been plowing into her, how very exhausted and undone was she? But he couldn't let go.

He fucked her right through it and out into a place of heightened awareness, that numb and terrible haze burning away so that all he felt was her body around him. The acceptance, the greedy way her sex clutched at him, her arms tight at his neck and shoulders, her breaths heaving, her belly touching his, slick with sweat.

He kept on, pushing deeper, angling one of her thighs out to widen her up to him. She sobbed, clinging to him everywhere, and he knew it was too much, he knew it was too much for her.

"Rick," she cried. "Please. Please."

He couldn't. He couldn't. It was too much for him too. He was aching with how hard he was, how much he wanted her, but his orgasm wouldn't come. His balls were permanently tight, his cock fixed and hard, his body unwilling to let her go, let it be over.

"Rick," she sobbed. "I won't - I promise."

It meant nothing. He could only feel, feel her under him, her body opening for him, the slack grip of her legs as she tried to wind them around his hips and yet they kept coming apart, falling apart. 

Her arms shifted behind his head, her cast digging into the bones of his neck and suddenly a jolt of sensation pulsed through him, vibrations, endless, buzzing under his skin like arousal, like need, and he cried out, stunned by it.

"I can, you can," she husked. Her breasts were crushed between them; he was losing his rhythm. "Come inside me. Right where you belong, right here, Castle. I'm right here."

He gritted his teeth but the cry ripped out of him, the fierce bellow torn from his throat, and he orgasmed spectacularly, deeply, fully inside her. Even as she held him against her, even as her fingers petted his neck, even as the vibrations from the cuff went on and on and on.

\-----

Her fingers cramped and she tried to hang on, needed to hang on, but her broken arm dropped to the mattress.

The buzz crawling under both of their skins finally stopped.

Castle was entirely still on top of her. Unmoving. She was having trouble drawing a full breath and she'd been practically hyperventilating before that and now her head swam, colors trailing before her eyes, black spots threatening.

Her good arm she kept tight around his shoulders. She couldn't unlock her elbow if she tried but she didn't want to try. She didn't want to anything. She was jaggedly off-center, buffeted by an ache that she knew - she knew - wasn't just her broken bones.

It was him. It was her. It was this thing they kept wounding between them. Until it bled.

He wasn't moving. She was barely breathing, barely hanging on, but she knew it was dangerous to fall asleep on him now. It was dangerous. Something bad would happen if she couldn't hang on.

She hadn't wanted to know. She had told herself she didn't need to know, and eventually it had morphed into not wanting to know, but she knew. She knew it was bad. It was worse than she'd thought it could be, back at the beginning, when she caught a flash of his broken heart in his eyes. 

Too many people had abandoned him. Too many had abandoned her. They were not good for each other, but she was all he had.

He was all she had.

She was going to hyperventilate. But she was all he had. 

She was going to kill herself if someone didn't stop her.

He was stopping her. 

She sucked in as deep a breath as she could and fought to hang on, to keep this moment, because she knew she was going to be bad for him for a long time, for a very long time; she didn't know how to be different. She didn't know how to trust anyone anymore, trust herself like this. It couldn't be trusted.

The cuff dug into his back, sweat making the leather stick to her skin, abrasive. Her hips ached so badly she had to grit her teeth, but she wasn't crying because of that.

She wasn't crying because of that.

She thought he had passed out.

How long had he stayed awake for her in the hospital? Every time she opened her eyes, there he was, haunting the darkness. He had worked on his laptop at the end there, sitting in the chair because she'd had enough of him crowding her in the bed, but still awake.

And now he had crashed. He was still as death over her.

She dragged her casted arm up, the weight of it making her clumsy, the cast striking his shoulder before she could maneuver her arm between them. Her fingers extended as far as they'd go and she could just brush the tips against the roughness at his jaw. His face was turned away from her, his head lying half on her pillow but mostly on her neck, but she could rub the the backs of her fingers to the soft, vulnerable place below his jaw.

Couldn't quite feel it, not with her nails acting as protection, but at least she was there.

She just had to hang on.

\-----

How long had it been?

“Rick,” she murmured into the top of his head. Still nothing. Her arm was aching something fierce, her hips, her knee where it was bent funny. She stroked the hair at his nape slowly, tried to think through this.

She wasn’t afraid, no. While he had always been so alert - she could barely move in bed without him waking - those shots he used knocked him out just this same way. She was used to this. She was used to this.

But he hadn’t given himself a shot.

“Rick,” she whispered, fingers kneading the back of his neck.

Her heart rate had calmed, her breathing had evened out - though shallow - she was more with it. She was tired, but she was always tired, and the trembling exhaustion in her whole body had subsided to a faint ache. 

She could do this.

Kate hooked her arm at the back of his neck, pressed a kiss to his temple, and then pushed up with her left shoulder. Immediately her breath caught at the sharp pain that traveled down her bad arm, and she rocked back to the mattress.

Okay, okay. Momentum. She needed some momentum because damn if her ribs and hips were gonna break now. No. 

Kate rocked a little, shoulder to shoulder, gently at first, and then she shoved her whole body into it.

The weight of his body carried him over, rolling right to his back - and pulling her down on top of him as well. She grunted, the noise spilling over into a laugh as she realized she was entirely tangled with him. And sticky. And still kinda aching as her hips popped and her spine popped and everything settled out again.

Kate pushed up on her elbows, gritting her teeth as the bones in her arm shifted. Fucking hell that hurt. Castle was so asleep his mouth was open, that beautiful sharp face entirely slack. She darted in and kissed his bottom lip, rubbed her mouth against the scruff of his jaw. He hadn’t shaved in a few days and his cheeks were shadowed.

Now that she was out from under him, she shifted until she could settle at his side, hooking a foot in the tangled covers. It took a couple tries before she got it, pulling the blankets up around them. Being on top was making her shiver, but his body was nice and toasty, and she squirmed in close.

He was breathing deep, slow. She closed her eyes, one leg hooked over his, the cast resting on his stomach. Drowsiness swamped her just that fast, swirling her down the drain. Everything that had been hurting was dulled, flat, and she knew she should’ve taken a painkiller for tonight, but she couldn’t move to save her life.

She nudged her nose into his armpit to keep warm, squirmed once more before settling.

She could feel the cuff around her wrist, her arm under his shoulder and the leather pressed to the skin at his back. Using him like a pillow.

The cuff. A band around her wrist that committed her to him. Tied them like a knot.

Tomorrow she could cut it off. Tomorrow she could fight him on it. Not tonight. Not now.

Maybe tomorrow wouldn’t come for a while.

\-----

Castle woke with a jerk, nightmares shoving him aware. He heaved a breath and found himself on his back, that sense of falling making him disoriented.

He’d fallen asleep.

“You fell asleep.”

He turned his head and found her at his chest, blinked hard to clear his vision. “I fell asleep.” He grunted. “I passed out on you. How-”

“Just tipped you over,” she murmured. Her lips brushed his neck, but he was sweating in his jeans and the damn long-sleeved shirt he’d been wearing to hide the cuff.

The cuff. “I...” He swallowed and scrubbed a hand down his face. “Gotta get out of these pants. Burning up.”

Kate withdrew, but she didn’t go far. He glanced at her, realized she couldn’t go far. 

“I passed out on you,” he muttered. Shit. “Must hurt. You hurt?” He shifted to one shoulder, came in close, nose to nose with her. He traced the line of her cheek and pushed her hair back behind her ear. “Supposed to have a painkiller at seven. Missed it.”

“Change out of your clothes,” she murmured. Her eyes were fathomless. Wells of-

Something.

“Yeah. Get you water, and a-”

“A pill, yeah,” she sighed. Her cast was on the mattress between them and he rubbed a thumb around the worn portion where her fingers curled. And she did, she curled her fingers around his thumb. “Gotta admit, I could use one after - after that.”

After him. Making her. He couldn’t quite find that place of shame for it, not yet anyway. Maybe he should be, but...

He just couldn’t.

She nudged her chin up, knocking into his. “Go. Pill. Change clothes.”

He nodded, scraped his fingers through her hair, leaning in to kiss her lips. She opened to him, but stayed chaste, only mouths. And breath.

He dragged his hand down her back and pushed off the mattress, got to his feet beside the bed. She rolled into his warm spot and he pulled the covers up over her shoulders before he began to strip. She watched him, his swift disrobing, and he made sure to throw his clothes into her laundry hamper in the bathroom. When came back through naked, she giggled and buried her head into the pillow, laughing again.

“Not exactly stroking my ego,” he told her, opening her bottom dresser drawer for the clothes she kept here for him. Boxers first.

“I don’t usually need to stroke you.”

He smiled back, but his amusement was only faint. Underneath all that was a lot of weariness, and his unconsciousness hadn’t exactly alleviated things. The sex had taken the panicked edge off, but he still wasn’t yet able to bounce back.

He wasn’t sure there was any bouncing back from this. From feeling, for that moment, how deep the void was without her, how wide the gulf.

How worthless his life was if she wasn’t here to come back to.

Castle pulled on a pair of loose plaid pajama pants, left the shirt off. He went bare-chested down the hall and to the kitchen, opened up her home care package. He twisted open the bottle of pain pills, fished one out. He gathered a glass, filled it with water, brought it and the pill back with him.

She was curled around the cast, her eyes closed when he entered.

“Kate, honey?” 

Her eyes opened slowly, and he came to the bedside, sank down to the mattress. She opened her fingers in the cast and touched his hip. He rubbed her back, thumbs digging into those knots at her spine.

“Can you sit up?” he murmured.

“Mm.”

He shifted to one side and deposited the water and the pill on the table, came back to slide an arm under her neck. She pulled her knees up and seemed to try, but he did the work. When she was sitting up, propped against the headboard, he grabbed the water and painkiller again.

“Horse pill,” she husked.

“Yeah, it’s a fat one. Good though, right? Helps.”

“Helps,” she nodded, taking the pill from his fingers and putting it on her tongue. He handed over the water and she took a big gulp, swallowed it down. She winced and downed the rest of the water, apparently having a rough time getting the pill to go down.

He rubbed her knee, took the glass when it was empty. “Need more?”

She shook her head, eyes closing.

He leaned over and replaced the glass on the bedside table for later, came back to her. “Crushed you.”

She gave a crooked smile. “Liked it.”

“Made you.”

Her eyes slid open. “Like that too. Sometimes.”

Most times. He didn’t bother to correct her. “Not sure what I expect here, not sure it even really helps, but-”

He jerked when the buzz vibrated the skin under his cuff. He cracked up, laughing at the sly look on her face, and he leaned in and kissed her gently as the vibrations died off.

“Alright?” she whispered at his lips.

“More than.” He caressed her cheek and kissed her again, pushed up from the bed. “Let me get that body pillow, left it on the couch.”

She nodded and slumped down into the mattress again, curling up.

His chest was tight as he headed for the door; he turned his head to her. “Need anything else?”

She didn’t answer for a moment. But then her fingers curled at the edge of the cast. “Just you.”

He swallowed hard and nodded, took a breath. “Yeah. You got me.” And then he patted the doorframe and headed for the living room.

He found Cujo asleep on top of her body pillow and it kinda released some of that tension again. He rubbed down the dog and woke him, tugged him by the collar to get him off the pillow. 

“Come on, Cuj. Let’s go keep Mama company.”

Cujo stretched, pushed back like a yoga pose, and then shook himself and trotted towards the bedroom.

Castle followed, wishing there was more. Something more to help, to ease her, to make it better.

Just you. Yeah. He could definitely do that.

\-----


	4. Chapter 4

It was first the dog, then the body pillow with her cast on it (and a leg), and then herself, and then, finally, Castle.

All in her queen sized bed, packed close. Though Castle was being weird, staying off her, his hand at her back but nothing else. He was slowly rubbing across her spine to the curve of her waist, and while that was nice, she wanted him to weigh her down.

Kate reached back with her casted arm, heavy and dragging and uncoordinated as it was, and she caught one of his fingers. He went still, and she tugged, drawing his arm over her waist and pulling until he was around her.

"Kate," he murmured.

"On me," she sighed, letting her arm sink into the body pillow once more. Cujo licked her fingers and laid his head on the pillow right there, but Castle was slowly working forward.

"On you," he echoed, his chest brushing her back.

"All the way," she mumbled. "Like before. Like always."

He let out a slow breath and eased into her, his body a little too careful but still obeying. He pushed a knee up behind her own drawn up knee, tucked it under her thigh. His arm curled up into her chest, his reach so long this way that his fingers splayed at the base of her throat, stroking the thump of her pulse. And finally, the full weight of his body came onto her side and back.

She released into the mattress, tension draining out of her, fight melting in her bones. Held in perfect stasis by his broad body at her back and his arm at her sternum, his leg bracing hers.

"Now I can sleep," she murmured.

"Only now?" His lips touched the back of her ear. "Why only now?"

"Need to be - held down," she gave up, words leaving her lips without thinking. Too heavy, too tired, to drugged to hold them back. "Need you to."

"I'm trying," he whispered. His nose nuzzling into her neck, another kiss through her hair. "I'm trying to hold you down, baby, without holding you back."

She stirred but couldn't quite come up, her whole body pressed into the mattress by him, by the painkiller. Her fingers were numb, chilled on top of the pillow even while the heat of him spread through her.

"You'll tell me if I'm holding you back," he said. "Tell me if I'm ruining it."

"Not ruined," she mumbled. And the last image she had before falling asleep was the vision of her last moment before being shot - of Vulcan's face as he enjoyed it, of her heart slowing to infinity between beats, and the certainty that this would work, this had to work, because he had taught it to her, he had perfected it in her, he was coming back to her.

He was coming back.

It had to work.

\-----

He actually fell asleep. 

When he woke, he was sweating, she was sweating, and the dog had vanished. He faintly heard whining and realized Cujo had woken him to get out, his cold nose touching the back of Castle's bare spine.

He turned over and saw Cujo's front paws on the bed, ears pricked. "You need out?" he rasped.

He felt bad. He'd never felt bad before. Had he taken the shot yet?

No, no he'd gone straight to the hospital. Shit. Okay, after he took the dog out to go to the bathroom, he'd have to use one from his stash in her freezer.

Castle managed to untangle himself, going slowly, but Beckett had slipped into the coma of painkillers. Which was good, definitely good. By the time he got to his feet beside the bed, Cujo had raced ahead of him for the hallway. Castle found a pair of cargo shorts in the bottom of his drawer (he'd bought them in Italy, that one time, and she'd kept them?), changing quickly out of pajamas. 

He pulled on the non-descript black t-shirt, scrubbed both hands through his hair and down his face, hoping to wake himself up. Since he was going out - and he'd have to take the shot when he got back, meaning eight hours of dead-to-the-world sleep - he should run some errands. Pick up her other prescription, buy some food, give Cujo and nice long walk.

When he shambled down the hallway, Cujo came bouncing back to him with his leather leash in his mouth, the end trailing behind him.

Castle huffed, roughly rubbed behind the dog's ears, and he took the leash. "Alright, I know. We're going out."

At 'out' Cujo gave a low woof, more a sound escaping his throat then a true bark, and Castle clipped the leash on him. At least Cujo had figured it out, or sensed the mood in the room, and knew better than to wake Beckett with his demands.

"Let me grab some cash, and a plastic bag, and we'll go." He was talking to the dog now. Great. Beckett would be laughing at him. 

Once he was appropriately geared up, he paused by the front door, hesitating. 

Simmons's guys should have been driven off by the arrival of the police car, and Black's team were probably more concerned with him than Beckett. If Deleware knew what was good for him anyway, he wouldn't approach Beckett. Could he be certain of that? Could he leave her alone, knocked out by painkillers with only a couple of fucking cameras on the place?

Shit.

Castle held up a staying hand to Cujo and backtracked for the bedroom, grabbing his weapon and its slim ankle holster plus his CIA phone. He dumped his NYC burner back on the dresser and glanced to Kate - still out, cuddling up to the body pillow - and he jogged back down the hall. He took a moment to strap on his extra piece, the .22 he'd brought for her, and then he stood again.

He snatched up Cujo's leash, already calling Eastman as he unlocked the front door. Mark picked up on the first ring, and Castle put his shoulder to the door to shut it after him. "Hey, favor to ask."

"Yes." Eastman answered before Castle could ask.

"What?"

"I'm five minutes from you. I'll sit on her while you get out."

"I... uh, okay. How'd you know?" He flipped the key in the lock and heard the tumblers shut, Cujo giving an experimental tug on the leash.

"You didn't get Black's message?"

"Shit. No. Didn't check. Just woke up."

"You fell asleep?" Incredulous. "Then I guess he's right. You need it."

"Yeah, I missed my training. He's wanting me to come in?"

"Yeah."

"Damn." He jogged down the stairs with the dog and walked briskly through the lobby, thinking it over. He might get some intel from Mitchell if the man was back at the Office. Or a nice long chat with Deleware. Either way, he came out ahead. "Okay, alright. You mind hanging out until I get that done?"

"Already here," Eastman said and Castle glanced up to find the man waiting outside the lobby doors.

He let Eastman in, tried to hand off the key, but Mark shook his head, which was damn reassuring as well. No telling how many times Castle had asked Mark to come by, stick his head in, check on her. He had been fairly certain the man had a key for emergencies, but now he knew.

"Smooth it out with your father," Eastman said as he headed for the stairs. "Maybe figure out what he thinks he's playing at with the team."

"Had the same thought," he said, saluting Eastman as he exited the building.

It was warm, and still golden with light. The sun wasn't due to set until nearly nine tonight, deep in the summer as they were. Strange, to feel the seasons in New York, like life was a little more real here. His last assignment had been a thing in Kenya to ensure 'democratic' elections and it had been about the same temperature. But summer in Kenya was winter in Kenya, and only here, home, did it register.

The last time he'd been here the temperatures had been mild enough that he and Kate had messed around in Central Park, finding solitary places to finger each other. She'd gone down on him in the middle of some trees that they'd later realized had been mere feet from the entrance to the Met. 

And now it was humid, close, the heat index high enough that even he felt it. 

He should've planned this better. Taken the damn shot. He had to start thinking ahead, make his moments count, his time. 

Cujo stopped so Castle did too, idly watching the dog urinate on a tree planted in the sidewalk. Poor bastard. He was still going. "You really needed out." A damn schedule was what the dog needed - what Castle himself needed. And Beckett most of all. Regular painkillers, regular meals, regular rest. He needed to get his head in the game, be proactive.

They walked on, Cujo happily sniffing things now, investigating the next best spot, Castle glad to stretch his legs, be moving. He had always needed physicality to keep him grounded, keep him soldiering on. Keep him numb.

Exertion and the planning would help his stress levels too. He knew that. Planning their days like he planned a mission would do wonders for the edge of tension that had come from a very real moment of debilitating grief. Still hadn't left him.

Honestly, he wanted to blow shit up. Or better yet, torture Vulcan Simmons. Fingernails, waterboarding, nothing too good for him. Tear off his gun hand and beat him with it. Smash in his face with Castle's fist. Or his boot.

That would be damn satisfying. So damn satisfying. He could practically feel it.

Cujo barked. One short, fierce sound that broke Castle's wandering thoughts and brought his head up.

The dog was braced before him, hackles raised, head ducked low to scent his prey.

Castle had been ambushed.

\-----

Castle went still.

There were two big black guys ahead of him and two nasty-looking white guys behind, boxing him into this narrow alley between buildings. 

That's what he got for taking a shortcut to the pharmacy and not paying attention.

"Hola," the man in the lead said. His accent was smooth, rolling, his skin light, but he held the swagger of a man high up the food chain. "We know exactly who you are."

Probably not.

"You're that bitch cop's boyfriend," the man continued. The two goons in the back had produced a crowbar and a pipe, while the black guy backing up his Spanglish-speaking leader had the gun. "The little bitch who tried to take down our boss."

"Roughly," he said, narrowing his eyes. Cujo was growling, snapping his teeth, and the man with the gun aimed towards the dog's head. Castle snapped his fingers and two of the guys jerked forward, but Cujo went silent.

Better. That was better. Don't let them think about the dog. Keep her dog out of it.

"We have a little message for your bitch."

Castle worked the dog's leash down over his wrist, carefully. Slowly. "Oh, yeah? Well, why don't you tell me your message and I'll make sure she gets it."

The leader gave a nice fat chuckle, that fake sound of a man who thought he knew more than his prey.

He was in for a surprise.

"Hombre, I don't think you understand."

"Oh?" He calculated the distance between himself and the gun, himself and the leader.

Leader it was.

"Boy, you are the message."

"Excuse me?" he asked, playing along, waiting for the man to get within striking distance. He gave a swift look over his shoulder like he was nervous, and he spotted two more guns drawn now.

Fuck.

Scrap that plan. Try again.

"We'll make sure it's real loud and clear, hombre." The guy swaggered closer, but his eyes held that deadness to them that always made Castle's skin crawl. 

This man enjoyed pain. 

The two behind him were too close now. Castle braced himself, used the loudness of his own voice to cover his dropping the leash. "What message-"

The first punch sailed into his cheek and snapped his head back, the second landed in his guts - and he stayed on his feet, still waiting for his moment. The dog was barking fiercely, loudly, and Castle gave a sharp, guttural command and Cujo dropped to his haunches, hackles raised, but staying.

But that was just enough time for the guy behind him to bring the crowbar down on his back.

Castle dipped to one knee, shoved aside the pain to time his move right. Crowbar advanced and Castle swept out with one leg, nailing him in the back of the thigh and bringing him down hard. Still crouched, Castle darted to the side as a weapon discharged, and he barreled into the second white guy, grabbing for the gun. The pipe came down on his shoulder, glancing off his ear, and Castle drove a haymaker up into the assailant's chin.

Pipe's neck snapped back. Castle wrenched the gun from his fingers, spun around and brought the butt of the weapon into the leader's face. "I got the message, hombre," he snarled, delivering an immediate punch to the Spanglish man's guts. "Now here's mine."

He bashed in the man's face, wrenched him by the neck to throw him to the pavement. He aimed and fired at the first white guy, who had risen and was trying to bring the barrel of the gun up, but Castle's bullet struck his sternum and punched through, bearing him to his knees.

Castle turned around just in time to shoot the second black guy, blowing out his kneecap and sending the enforcer to the ground. When Castle pivoted back, Crowbar was aiming a swing for his head.

He ducked and rolled, the crowbar landed on his hip, and Castle popped up too close for another hit. Crowbar bellowed and backpedaled, but Castle slammed the gun into Crowbar's throat, collapsing his windpipe and causing the man to drop.

And now for the leader.

He stalked back to Spanglish, giving himself enough time to cool down, and the leader enough time to see him coming.

Spanglish struggled up to his feet, hunched and unable to stand up straight, and Castle casually landed a blow to the man's solar plexus. Another to his liver even as the guy groaned and stumbled back. 

He pummeled Spanglish's ribs, driving his fists deep, pushing the man back until he was up against the brick. His moans were gurgling through his own blood, coughing it up as Castle beat him within an inch of his life.

When Spanglish dropped to the ground, Castle stopped. Knelt down beside his prone, moaning form.

"You tell your boss," he said evenly. "I didn’t get the message."

Castle wiped the gun with the tail of his shirt. Took a breath. The man at his feet was wheezing with every breath but still trying to rise. Castle lightly kicked him in the ribs, collapsing him back to the pavement.

He scanned the alley, noted the one with the shattered knee was attempting to stagger forward, using the brick for balance. The gun was missing, and he stopped dead when he saw Castle watching him, but Castle couldn’t care less.

He turned slowly, breathing through the discomfort, and he finally began to come back. The dog was barking like a maniac, yipping, howling, and two of the men were rattling breath as they died.

Looked like Spanglish wouldn’t be taking that message back to his boss.

Castle moved purposefully down the alley until he found Cujo between two dumpsters, making tight, insane circles as he barked. When he saw Castle, he broke training entirely and came running, the leash bouncing against the pavement.

Castle grunted when Cujo landed his front paws on his shoulders, licking his face and whining. 

“Okay, okay,” he husked. He wrapped an arm around the dog, rubbing him down hard, but he kept his eyes on the men in the alley. “No time for this. Down. Down.”

Cujo whimpered but dropped back all the way to his haunches, head bowed in submission. Castle scratched roughly behind his ears on his way to bending for the leash, sucked in a whistling breath as his ribs caught.

Little worse off than he’d expected. Crowbar. No shot in over a month. Not a great combination.

He gripped the leash in one hand, being sure the leather couldn’t tangle him up. “Heel,” he commanded, and Cujo came up on all fours and followed him out of the alley.

Where Deleware was leaning against the concrete facade.

He had thought there was one more.

Del cocked an eyebrow. “You’ve left me a mess, Richard.”

“Not your mess,” Castle rumbled. He ignored the flare in his ribs whenever he breathed deeply. “Leave it.”

“Can’t. One of them is dead.”

“Probably two,” he admitted.

Deleware’s face was blank, untroubled, but Castle could sense just how pissed he was. Castle had made him more work and he’d taken Deleware off surveillance of Kate.

Win-win.

“Well, get cracking, Del.” Castle flexed his fingers around the dog’s leash. “Since you sat out the actual work.”

“Your father claims you’re entirely capable.” There was a nasty tone to the words and Castle turned to give Deleware a long, stony look.

“Entirely. Capable,” he threatened. Stay the fuck away from Beckett.

Deleware side-stepped past him and walked into the alley, hands in fists, ignoring Castle.

He didn’t mind one bit. Deleware would be busy here cleaning up his ‘message’ to Vulcan Simmons, which meant he wouldn’t be sitting on Beckett’s apartment.

He would worry about explaining it to his father later.

\-----

He dropped the grocery bags on the counter, breathing shallow so he wouldn’t pull anything. The package of new medication was still in his fist.

Eastman crossed his arms over his chest. “I told you nothing stupid.”

“Wasn’t me being stupid.”

“I’m sure.”

Castle shrugged and unleashed Cujo, but the dog didn’t move from his side, circling his feet and bumping against Castle’s thighs. He sighed and winced as his breath caught his ribs, and now Eastman was moving past him to the refrigerator.

“You have some here, don’t you?”

Castle patted the dog’s head, nudged him away so he could follow Eastman. “How’d you know.”

“Only smart.”

“You just said I was stupid.”

“You have your moments.” Eastman pulled out the grey case with its insulated vials. “You have an injector here?”

Shit. “I did. Had.” Fuck, was that one of the things Beckett had dumped down the trash chute a few months back? “I think.”

“Either you do or you don’t,” Eastman said, giving him a onceover. “And if you don’t, you need to go in.”

Castle dropped the meds on the counter beside the sink. “I’ll have to ask Beckett.” He winced and it wasn’t just the thought of waking her after only a couple hours sleep.

“You do that. I’m not kidding, Richard.”

He waved Eastman off; he already knew he needed it. Instead of prolonging the inevitable, he headed down the hall for the bedroom.

Kate was curled on her left side, which couldn’t be comfortable on that shoulder, so he went on inside and sank to his knees before the mattress. Cujo had followed him, and before he could stop it, the dog had jumped up on the bed and nosed into Kate’s neck, a sharp little bark.

“Fuck. Cujo,” he hissed. But Kate had flinched at the sound and now her eyes fluttered open. He leaned in and touched the top of her head, combed his fingers through her hair. “Hey, sorry about that, baby.”

“Dog,” she slurred.

“Yeah, that was the dog.”

She blinked and blinked again, frowned at him. Her good hand came out and touched his chin, bumped up to his lips. “Bleeding.”

“Shit, sorry,” he said, pulling back and touching his mouth. Blood. Yeah. “I’ll get cleaned up in a second. Do you still have my injector?”

The confusion washed from her face and she shoved up on her elbow, scrambled up against the headboard. “Castle,” she rasped. “Oh God.”

“Not that bad. Promise. Injector, Kate?”

“You need a shot?” she choked out. “You need a shot. There’s more. More than your face. You got in a fight with who?” But before he could answer, she was shifting forward, her cast knocking into his shoulder as she touched his face. “With Deleware.”

“No, not him. Simmons’s people. It’s okay. You know when I was an asshole and mouthed off, and you shoved stuff down the trash chute? Did you throw away the-”

“I have it,” she said suddenly, shaking her head and sliding forward, her feet pushing past his thighs to touch the floor. “I kept it. Important. Course I kept it. You need it.” She was pushing past him, stumbling through the thick of her painkillers towards the bathroom off the hall.

“Beckett, baby, just tell me where it is and I’ll-”

“It’s right here. I have it. Oh, fuck, Eastman. Shit. Shit. Castle, you gotta warn me people are here.”

He followed, caught Eastman’s eye, and the amusement, as Kate tugged down the t-shirt over her thighs. Bare thighs. Like Eastman hadn’t seen them both naked and fucking that one time.

“Richard,” she said, gesturing for him. “Under there. I’m not bending over.”

He couldn’t help the grin flickering at the corners of his mouth, but he gripped her by the hips and bodily moved her out of the way. He opened the linen closet door and bent over, saw the black zipper case on the bottom shelf. Under the extra blankets.

He tugged it out and straightened up, turned back to her. She had slumped against the doorframe, eyes heavy, but she was watching him. “Vulcan’s men.” She lifted up. “A fight.”

“Small fight.”

“Two of them, one of you.”

“I had the dog,” he said. Kinda lying. Shouldn’t lie. “Four of them though, really.”

She swayed as she stepped towards him; he had to catch her by the elbow and a hip, the injector kit under his arm. She slumped into him for a moment and then straightened up. “You need the shot. Why are we standing in the bathroom? Eastman, stop checking out my legs and get him the stuff out of the freezer.”

Castle laughed and glanced at Eastman, but he was checking out Kate’s legs. Or ass. He narrowed his eyes and Eastman rolled his, waving him off as he left them there.

“You’re a married man,” Castle yelled after him. Half-hearted. Sorta serious. “He’s a married man.”

She was listing into him again, gripping his arm. “Come ‘ere. Out to the couch. You’re gonna crash.”

“Not immediately,” he huffed.

“Couch.” She winced and glanced up at him. “I’m gonna crash maybe too.”

He took her by the elbow and turned her towards the door. “Couch it is. Come on, Beckett.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“I’ll tell you everything, promise.”

“Doesn’t count if you tell me after I fall asleep.”

“Doesn’t? Damn.”

She glanced over her shoulder at him and frowned again. “Your eye. Lip split. Ribs? Or your back.”

“You’re the expert on injuries, you tell me.”

“Fuck off. Where are you hurting?”

“Kinda all over,” he admitted.

She reached back and circled his wrist lightly with her fingers, pulling him along after her. But she wasn’t moving, and he bumped up against her, and she pressed her cheek to his chest, inhaling. Her arms came around him, awkward with the cast.

“Spine. Bruised? Someone hit you from behind. Otherwise you wouldn’t be so bad off, four or not.”

He ducked his head to her hair and closed his eyes. “Your confidence in me is heart-warming.”

“Don’t be-”

“I’m actually serious,” he chuckled. “Just as I was when you dumped my stuff down the trash chute.” He wrapped his arms around her so she couldn’t stiffen and escape. “Love it when you know me.”

She sighed. “Too tired for this, Richard. Couch.”

“Yeah, love. The couch. Take my shot, my vitamins-”

“Like a good boy,” she mumbled.

“A good boy,” he echoed, grinning again. He kissed the corner of her mouth and then turned her around, nudged her towards the living room.

\-----


	5. Chapter 5

"Naw, I'm not going far," Eastman promised. He was studying Castle as he gathered his stuff, things going back into his pockets.

She glanced to the man slumped beside her on the couch, his head tilted back as he fell, in slow stages, towards unconsciousness.

"How close?" she asked finally, though she was still regarding Castle.

"Close enough, Kate."

At her first name, her head turned around. Eastman had his hands in his pockets, a frown creasing his forward. 

"You should sleep while he sleeps," he told her. "God knows once he's up, neither of you will sleep much."

She only raised an eyebrow, though she knew it was tacit agreement that she and Castle fucked a lot. Couldn't help themselves, considering how often he was gone, how many homecomings they'd weathered. "I'll try," she said. 

"Pills should have you-"

"Eastman," she said carefully. "Don't pick up his bad habits."

Mark actually cracked a smile, suppressed as it was. "Sometimes I think you actually listen to me. Goes to my head. I'll leave you now."

She struggled to stand. "I'll lock the door after-"

"I've got a key."

She paused, half pushed forward on the couch. "Of course you do."

"Of course I do," he said, a little smug, but also entirely competent. "I put away the cold stuff, but left the rest on the counter."

"Wait, what cold stuff?"

"Groceries. Your boy got groceries and your prescription after he got jumped." And with that last parting shot, Eastman was out her front door.

Kate turned to Castle, closed her mouth when she realized there was absolutely nothing she could say. Or do. No ice because it was the heat of his blood that healed him, no tylenol because it only interfered, no help at all. 

She sighed and touched his neck, leaned in against his chest. Castle sighed softly into the top of her head, and she knew he'd heard all of that, knew his awareness wasn't gone, only his ability to do anything about it.

She maneuvered one of his arms out from under her and drew it around her shoulders, straddling his thigh as she curled in with him.

From his chest, the groan of his frustration came through clearly, right into her bones. And then a surge of strength as his arm tightened around her, dragged her down to the couch with the rather uncontrolled descent of his body. They were lying side by side now, her casted arm between them.

"Sleep," he gutted out. "Sleep."

"Okay, okay," she whispered, squirming in his clutch until she wasn't so tightly wedged between him and the back of the couch. "You too, Rick." She kept her head lifted until she could be sure his eyes were closing, and then she laid down against his bicep.

She'd gotten him in trouble, but it had been trouble he could handle, had handled, easily enough. He had even saved the damn dog. (You trained him well, good job, very good job, baby. His words had already been slurred, his body pitching into her, his eyes a little too shiny and proud and filled with emotion.)

She smoothed her hand down his side, pushed her fingers up under his t-shirt. His skin was hotter than usual, which was saying something, and she coasted her touch to his back. He hadn't wanted to let her see it, but she'd insisted, pulling up his shirt before he could move away from her.

Livid black bruises in a line across his back. He had reluctantly told her it was a crowbar, and now that the apartment was quiet and no one was talking around her, she realized it had been bad. Not just four against one and him worrying about the dog rushing into the fray, but for Castle to have been forced to let someone get that close to him, it had to have been very bad.

He was lying on his side, already so unconscious that she was half propping him up, the shot working fast to bring him under. He had been jumped by four men and yet he had taken them out, and now Deleware was down there cleaning up the mess. 

It shouldn't make her feel so safe. But it did. 

Kate touched a kiss to his burning skin, her casted arm hard between them. He was solid as a rock as he slept, and she would soon have to move him off her just to have some fresh air, but for now it was nice.

Reassuring.

Why did that feel like a dirty word?

But crunched between the couch and Castle's own impressive body (a body she knew inside and out, had mapped every ridge and even the fading scars, a body that felt like her own, to be used, to be handled, powerfully and masterfully.)

She loved his body, and she loved the way it felt being trapped by him, and she knew she didn't often let herself succumb to those feelings, feelings which would drown her, distract her from the main goal, wreck her if she couldn't contain them - she knew she couldn't dwell in them long, but every so often, every once in a while, some event left her raw. Left her feeling. All the things she harbored. And now here they were, messy and complicated as she laid in his shadow.

While he slept. While he was passed out entirely from a injection he'd given himself in his thigh, only one element of a lifelong program created to shape and contain her entirely too human, and feeling, spy.

She hated his father. She despised him so desperately it scared her, it drove her, it made her do stupid things when she was caught off guard. Rationally, she knew better than to divorce him of his only known relative, but irrationally, she wanted to hide Castle away from Black.

Protect him. Four against one, crowbars and Deleware, she wanted Castle away from the man.

It was, and always had been, real work to suppress that feeling. It left her exhausted, the management and pruning of all these conflicting emotions that his leaving laid bare.

But it was in times like these, when he was empty and vulnerable before her - after sex or after shot, didn't matter - that she smoothed out all those feelings and let herself look at them as clearly as she could.

She could feel the leather cuff on her wrist where he had forced her to wear it. Enclosed around her arm like a manacle. And he was her ball and chain.

Oh, God. It was like a damn wedding ring, and she knew it. A symbol of a commitment she had fought against for so long. She knew it would come off again the moment she could, the moment they butted heads, but she also knew, more importantly, that something would happen that would drive her right back to that place where she put it on again. For him. For the abject miserable need in his eyes that all centered around her.

Be cool had never happened. Not for either of them. She knew it had to, she absolutely had to be cool or else lose herself forever, lose her focus and her meaning in life and her drive. She had to. It welled up in her again like panic and all those smooth emotional truths were snagged and snarled all over again.

She squirmed free of his body, feeling no less heavy and seduced by sleep than before, and she crawled over him to get off the couch. She swayed, had to dip down and catch herself on the coffee table, breathing slowly. And then she headed for the kitchen and the bags of groceries that had been left out for her.

She spotted the red and white sleeve from the pharmacy immediately, resting on the counter in a mangled twist, two spots of blood staining the bottom. She untwisted the strangled neck, smoothed it out until she could open it.

Her antibiotics. She was supposed to take them twice daily to be sure the surgical site didn't get infected again.

He'd been jumped and then he had resolutely walked the dog to the grocery store and the pharmacy to meet her needs. For her.

"Not cool," she husked into the silence. 

She wiped errant tears from her cheeks and put her back to the man passed out on the couch, began unloading the groceries.

Just keep moving. 

\-----

At the end of it, she made a sandwich.

It was really all she could do. She was so sapped of energy she had actually smacked her forehead against the counter, going down before she could catch herself. But she couldn’t take the antibiotic on an empty stomach, with the very little she’d had yesterday, and Castle had gotten them for her.

He had kept going, just for her, and she had to take the damn antibiotic, and to do that she had to have something.

She had to. It was exhausting. She was exhausted. It was exhausting to chew, and she stood leaning into the counter with her casted arm clunky against the counter and she just wanted to not.

Not anything.

But she twisted the lid off the bottle and swallowed the antibiotic, a fucking huge pill, this one too. It took nearly half the bottle to get it down, and she spilled the water down her chin in her haste.

She just needed to sit down.

Instead, Kate worked mechanically at the sandwich, smaller bites to keep it manageable, her eyes scanning the room. Landing on him. 

His back was to her. She couldn’t see his face, his eyes; she could only slightly detect the rise of his ribs as he breathed, and even then she had to really concentrate.

Which she didn’t exactly have the energy or focus to accomplish with the painkillers still chugging in her blood.

And being all the way over here in the kitchen meant she couldn’t tell if he was in distress, or even if the shot was working. After the near-disaster with her first experience with the program, she was wary of the easy fix.

Kate brought the last of her sandwich with her as she headed for the couch, her feet shuffling to keep her balance. She tripped on the coffee table, of course, but she had a death grip on the sandwich anyway. She had bruises on both knees now, and her head ached from lack of sleep, lack of food. 

She finally sank down on the couch at his knees, but her body kept going, just slumped right over. She laid on her uninjured arm with the sandwich against her chest and she knew it was pathetic but she really couldn’t move.

She shifted just enough to feel him at her back, and then she had a knee up, a leg drawing back, her whole body slumping into the cushions.

Into him.

She could feel him breathing. And he was nice and warm, so warm. 

Kate curled her casted arm up into her chest and closed her eyes.  
She wouldn’t sleep, but she would rest here, feeling him.

\-----

She hadn't meant to fall asleep, but when she startled awake, she found Cujo whining into her neck, whuffing at her. The sandwich had fallen to the floor, and apparently the dog had just not been able to take it any longer.

She hummed amusement and clumsily petted Cujo's head, kissed his muzzle as he whined at her. "Go ahead. All yours." She released him and snapped her fingers, pointed to the sandwich. 

Cujo pounced immediately, devouring it in moments, tongue snaking out, teeth bared. Turkey meat and bread, couldn't hurt him, and it was pleasant to see someone enjoying what she'd painstakingly attempted to do right. She rubbed the dog's backend as he wolfed it down and then Cujo turned playfully in a tight circle and jumped onto the couch on top of them.

Castle shouted awake, heaving upwards only to get a faceful of eager, licking dog. Kate was stunned with laughter. She struggled to sit upright and she got an elbow in her shoulder for the effort, plus a dog prancing over her thighs with his tail wagging and his woof rumbling in the living room.

"Ah, hell, Cujo," Castle rasped, listing heavily into the back of the couch.

"Lie down," she murmured, and then laughed again. "Both of you. Cujo-"

"Bed," Castle interrupted. "All... fuck, I'm gonna fall."

"You can't fall," she said, but she wedged her bad shoulder into his side. "No place to fall to."

"Fall to you," he mumbled. His eyelids were heavy. "Bed. Beckett."

"You sure you can make it?"

"Make it." He was trying to drag his legs off the couch, and she got bulldozed, unable to scramble out of his way. Castle caught her neck with a loose arm, brought her into him so she wouldn't fall off the couch.

She huffed at him, kicked Cujo off their legs, and Castle listed hard as he pushed himself to his feet. He didn't sway. He looked wiped, but his legs were steady under him. He even turned and offered her his hand, like he could at all help her up.

Here was the man who had taken some damn hard hits and then gone grocery shopping.

"You're ridiculous," she muttered, slapping his hand away. She struggled up on her own, but she tripped a little on Cujo. Castle caught the back of her shirt and pulled her back into balance again.

"You're ridiculous. Hey, end of the world, let's go to Remy's."

"What?" she laughed, shooting him a sideways look. He was making a supreme effort to move forward, she could see the battle on his face. "Remy's. Fine. World ends, we'll eat cheeseburgers."

"And fries," he mumbled. "Second date."

"We never dated, Richard," she said softly, her good arm twining around his waist to prop him up. Or maybe herself. "We went straight to sex."

"We went to dinner," he insisted. One of steps went awry and he careened into the wall, dragging her with him, but he caught himself with his forearm against the door frame, kept her from going down as well. "Whoops. Not quite here."

"I know. Just make it to the bed."

"Bed." He shambled forward and his knees seemed rubbery, dipping as if to take them both down. But he made it to the mattress and then sank slowly into it, first a braced hand, then his hips, his chest, all while his legs hung over the edge.

He rolled onto his back and pulled his bare feet up onto the mattress, beckoned her. "First date, potato cakes. Cabbage rolls. You tried to get me drunk with all that wine, but I don't get drunk."

"You're kind of insufferable this way, you know?" But she snapped her fingers for Cujo and the dog came loping into the room and jumped right up on the bed. He was waiting for her, it seemed, before he would settle, and with both her guys looking at her expectantly, she sighed and crawled into bed with them.

"Better, much better. Bed was our first date too," he sighed, turning over and pinning her to the mattress. "Then your dad. First date part two. Sexy."

"Not sexy," she whispered, palming the side of his face as he sank on top of her. 

"No, meant. Sorry, words are.... thought about having sex with you the whole time."

"While we picked up my dad?" she laughed. Her body was just as exhausted as his, and the dog was a comforting warmth at her hip. While Castle - oh, Rick - nearly passed out on top of her. Must have been four hours since the injection, because she could always get him to rouse at the four-hour mark.

"Yeah, dad. Sorry, Dad, wanna fuck your daughter."

She snorted, stroked her fingers at the nape of his neck. "You're so romantic."

"I know."

She laughed again and he whined, squirming like the dog until he got into a better position. She winced as he maneuvered her injured arm, but she had to admit it felt better up near her head, propped on her pillow. 

"Best first date ever. Wanted to never leave."

"I see that. Still here, aren't you?"

"Never leave," he sighed. His breath stirred her hair and she kissed his temple. He was heavy on her left side, but not unpleasant. In fact, extremely pleasant. She hoped she wouldn't fall asleep again.

But talking was good. Good sign. 

"End of the world, want you at Remy's. Fries and shakes. Just like always."

"Okay," she said softly into his nonsense. "It's a date."

"Good, good, gonna fall asleep, baby."

"I think so." 

"You too."

"We'll see." She tilted her head down to look at him but he had already fallen into unconsciousness.

\-----

Castle woke immediately.

His head was clear, his body was flexible if overly warm, and he was lying on top of Beckett's thighs. Basically in her lap. It was a very nice place to be. Much better than an army cot in his father's research lab.

"Oh yeah?" she murmured. Her fingers scratched behind his ear like he was the dog. "That's good. Because these are my expensive sheets."

She was awake, and propped up against the headboard, her casted arm on top of his shoulders and back. He turned his head and kissed the rise of her thigh, stayed where he was because then she would too.

Cujo was at the foot of the bed, not dozing, but being a very good dog. "How long?" he said roughly, hearing his voice now as it scraped out of him.

"Seven hours, forty-eight minutes," she said. "Stay right here until we hit eight, yeah?"

It wasn't necessary. He could feel the wholeness of his body. But. "Yeah. Best place to be, between your legs."

She chuckled and nudged the cast down against him. "Bruises are gone. So is the last of the scar on your wrist. I watched it disappear."

He shivered, drawing his hand up to look at it. Scimitar had nearly taken his hand off at the wrist. On the top of his bones there had been a nasty scar, mostly because he'd made her take the stitches out too late. They'd already gotten stuck in his fast-healing skin.

"You did?" he murmured. The scar was gone. He felt - sad. Stupid, but it was also her scar, a mark of them, a testament to how she'd saved his life even though he hadn't deserved it. Bleeding to death on her kitchen floor.

She rubbed her thumb over his knuckles. "Eerie." At the hunch of his shoulders, she petted his nape with her casted fingers. "But beautiful for all that, Rick. Bad scars fade. You don't have to carry them around with you."

"I liked it though," he sighed, honesty spilling out of him. "Reminded me of you. What you did for me. Having it still was - like a promise."

She tugged at the black cuff just below the place where the scar wasn't. "Don't you think this is promise enough?"

Did she think of the bracelets like a promise? "Yeah," he said roughly, nodding his head into her thighs. The urge to crush her in his embrace was nearly overwhelming. 

She was promising him things, wearing the cuff. She was making him promises. 

He knew she'd take it off the moment she could, the moment she thought him too much, or not cool, or taking over her life. But that was just fine. She'd put it back on eventually, apologizing with her body, and he looked forward to that hazy future make-up sex too.

"What are you grinning about?" she muttered, tugging at the hair on his nape.

"The proximity of my mouth to your delectable sex."

She laughed, but he felt the way her stomach rippled where his head was against her. He reached under her shirt and skimmed his cuffed hand around her waist, back to the soft flesh above her hipbones.

She had no meat on her after the hospital stay. He'd fix that. Easily. "Cheeseburgers."

She groaned, smacking the back of his head with her free hand (at least not the cast). "Gross, Castle. It is not a cheeseburger."

And with that image in his head, he laughed hard, lifting up to share that with her, and even as she rolled her eyes, he could see her trying to suppress her own amusement.

"You know how when you pull apart the burger to put more ketchup on it?" he went on. "And the cheese clings to the bun-"

"Do not even."

"Like your sticky arousal clings to my chin-"

She grunted and kneed him in the side, bringing her legs up like she was going to push him off her. But he had eleven more minutes and she was comfy and he knew exactly how to emotionally blackmail her.

"No, don't, my time's not up yet," he said, hanging on to her hips to keep her.

She went still, huffed at him, but she stopped trying to get away.

He hid his smile between her legs and inched his fingers under the waistband of her yoga pants, started his assault.

Kate sucked in a tight breath and nudged her hips up, one hand clutching the back of his head.

He propped himself on an elbow and started working her pants off.

\-----

“You taste exquisite,” he hummed.

Kate arched. Every part of her was caught up in the way her worked her sex. The smallest vibration from his lips, his throat, his tongue - they made her knees come up and her womb contract.

Castle pressed her open and she gripped the back of his head, couldn’t help humping his face.

God, it was embarrassing just how much she craved this.

His tongue slithered through her folds and then flicked her clit. She cried out, her heel catching his ribs. He pressed her down again, using an elbow to hold her open. 

His head lifted and she whimpered. “Castle.”

His fingers stroked her thighs, wet and cool, his lips kissed her sex so softly she shivered.

“Rick.”

“Shhh, I’m working here.”

A laugh caught in her throat as his tongue circled her clit. Her inside thighs trembled, her fingers tangled in hair, gripped his ear, dug into his back. The cast was awkward and kept knocking him away, kept getting in the way, but he just moved her arm. The sensation of his mouth so light, so transitory, so tantalizing that she writhed against him, heedless of her arm.

His fingers now. His touch sliding across her clit. He was playing and not playing; he was licking her inside thigh and circling his fingers around and around her clit. She was so wound up, so tight inside that she could barely breathe.

“You’re so beautiful, writhing for me.”

She whined his name and tried to angle his mouth back to her. He ignored her, resisted entirely. But his touch was driving her crazy, like scratching at her, like when she’d gotten the tattoo inked on her side and the constant irritation of the needle made her squirm just like this.

Like sex.

Like almost, almost, almost-

“Ka-ate,” he sing-songed against her skin. “Kate, baby. You’re so wet.”

She groaned and tried to shift her hips into him, tried to press up against the rough edge of his jaw.

“Unh-uh, sweetheart. I’m in control.”

She whined, digging her heel into him, forcing herself upwards.

Castle sucked hard at her inside thigh, leaving a mark, and then his fingers thrust inside her.

She cried out, tightening around his fingers, back bowed sharply. 

Castle withdrew and thrust again. She quivered like a plucked wire, her thighs tense and closing in.

He dug his shoulder into her thigh and began thrusting his fingers inside her, a terrible rhythm, not nearly enough, just to keep her on the edge, the furious edge.

He kissed her thigh, marking her, came to her hip bone with a lick, scraped his teeth across her belly. She writhed under him, into him, riding the fierce penetration of his fingers. She was shaking now, barely able to keep it together, the cast knocking into her own ribs as she tried to reach for herself.

He pushed her arm aside again and crawled up her body, still working his fingers inside her. His mouth came to her shirt and made it wet, sucking at her breast as he rose to his knees. She whimpered and clawed at his back, and his free hand clutched the back of her neck tightly.

Her eyes snapped open.

His fingers thrust deeply and curled. She cried out, staring at his face, the deep and predatory glint of his eyes, and then she orgasmed around his fingers, one of the hardest, most intense orgasms she’d ever had.

And then his cock pushed inside her.

Her knees came up, and he dragged her body down to the mattress. The material of his pants abraded her inside thighs, the raw places where he’d marked her, but he didn’t wait. He fucked her deep, pressing her back into the bed, his hand still gripping her by the back of her neck.

Her cast knocked him in the ribs as she tried to hold on and he laughed, a bright and joyous thing that broke the animal on his face. His free hand gripped her thigh and tugged her into him, and she held onto him with her injured arm, barely able to move.

He thrust, and her body contracted.

He fucked her and she lost her breath.

His mouth came to her neck and sucked hard on her skin, teeth scraping, and she cried out.

His cock went deep. She arched viciously, slamming her body into his, clawing for him.

He cried out, taken by her, and she felt him orgasm inside her, the wild piston of his hips as her body worked him, pummeled by his assault.

And then he released her neck and reached between them, scraped his thumb over her clit.

She cried out, orgasming hard into the last of his, swept clean by it all, washed out.

She sank deep into the mattress, his body holding hers down, and he carefully shifted her arm between them as he moved.

“No, don’t,” she slurred, to weighted down to even open her eyes.

“Not going anywhere, baby, hush.”

He drew her against him and now she sank into his body instead, into his heat and his strong arms and his hard thighs.

She was falling asleep.

\-----


	6. Chapter 6

Castle eased Kate back to the pillows, carefully rested her casted arm on the body pillow. She sighed in her sleep and snuggled in, and while he hated to miss this rare version of snuggling Beckett, he had to get moving on this shit.

He’d managed to fuck up Simmons’s people, and he hoped the police detail would deal with his father’s. But just in case, he couldn’t leave it at that.

He also needed a dose of those supplements. Eastman had been locked out of the dispensary to force Castle to come in - that had happened almost immediately after Beckett had kicked Black in the knee, hiding Castle in her bedroom after he’d nearly lost his arm.

But there were others who could get in. Deleware, of course.

But Mitchell could too.

He didn’t even know Mitch’s first name, but he knew the man’s character. If there had to be someone from the Office sitting on Beckett’s place, Mitchell was actually a relief.

Del, not so much.

But he thought he had a handle on Deleware. He just needed Mitch’s help.

Castle found his burner phone on the kitchen counter where he’d left it after getting groceries, and he quickly dialed the main office by heart. There was a weird tone before the operator picked up, giving the usual mask of random company name.

“This is Rook,” he said carefully, using his CIA filter name. The name put on every file he was affiliated with, every case, every mission, every assignment. Rook. “Clearance access: Alpha-47-Foxtrot. I need to be connected with Agent Mitchell.”

“Please hold.”

His access code must be on highest priority right now. Which meant his father assumed he’d be making contact.

Shit out of luck, John Black.

The line clicked and connected, ringing through. Castle sank down into the chair pulled up to the dining room table, rested an elbow on the wood.

He had fucked her right here. More than once. It was an ideal height for eating her out and she loved the bruises she got in her elbows and on her spine from the way she arched and writhed.

“This is Mitchell.”

“Mitch, it’s Agent Castle.”

“Good. You get the message?”

“I got a message,” he chuckled. “Gave one too. But Eastman is handling it.”

“Do what?” Mitchell said, confused as he should be.

“Don’t worry about it. Point is, can’t come in right now. But Black is right - I do need to finish out the program here. I can do the training here, but-”

“You want me to grab you a case of this shit and bring it to you, don’t you?”

“You got it in one.”

“You’re fucking insane.”

“Black wants me on this shit. He’ll be grateful you-”

“He will most definitely not be grateful, you asshole.”

Castle chuckled and rubbed his jaw. “Here’s the deal, Mitch. Agent Deleware is fucking psychotic, and you’ve been stuck with him as a partner.”

Mitchell grumbled something and then said, “No shit he’s psychotic. You know what he said to me when we got this detail? No, wait, you don’t want to know. I don’t want to know but you can’t unhear that shit.”

“What did he say,” Castle grunted.

“Back to your issue.”

“What did he say.”

“Something about the color of her cunt. Now about your issue.”

“The fuck-”

“Put a fucking lid on your self-righteous indignation, Agent Castle. You tell me why the fuck I should help you circumvent Black when I’m partnered with a psychopath who would like nothing better than to watch me squirm. Preferably on the end of a samurai sword because he is just that fucking insane.”

Castle rubbed the bridge of his nose and tried to breathe through the hot flash of anger that was still roiling in him.

“Castle. Fuck the psychopath. He says shit to make you - make any decent human being - lose their lunch. What are we doing about Black?”

The ‘we’ heartened him, but he was still making private plans to fuck over Deleware. Sooner rather than later, no matter what Beckett said about being the better man.

“I need you to go to the dispensary. There are two cases, a silver case and a matte black case. I need both, the silver as back-up to replenish what I have here.”

“It’s refrigerated, right? Do I need some kind of special transport?”

“No, it will be fine in transition. The pills in that black case - should be around two hundred. It’s a lot, but I never know when I need a boost. You get both of those for me, bring them to the apartment when you’re on duty.”

“And what do I get in return?”

“My support,” he said, wincing. “I know it sounds like nepotism, but it’s what I can give you. I can talk to Black. I can pull you onto my team and you work with me, not assholes like Deleware.”

“I don’t mind assholes,” Mitch said. “I’d be working with you. What I mind are crazy as fuck psychopaths who want to watch other people suffer. Innocent fucking civilians.”

A cold chill went down his spine. “What did he say about her?”

“You really don’t want to know, man.”

Castle did actually want to know. But he’d interrogate Mitch after he got here with the stuff Castle needed.

“You doing this for me?” Castle asked.

“Yeah, shit. I don’t know why, but I’m doing it for you.”

\-----

Mitch wasn’t scheduled to go on shift until eight that night, so Castle had time to chill. He pulled out Beckett’s crock pot and threw chicken and frozen vegetables into it, some cream of whatever soup, added Italian spices and set it to cook. He checked her fridge but there were no eggs, and not even peanuts in the pantry.

No way to get the protein he needed after a thing like this.

Oh, well. He could tough it out until Mitch arrived.

He rubbed down Cujo for a little while, brushed the matted knots out of the dog’s fur and tail, places where it seemed as if the beast had rolled around in the dumpster out there. Sticky places. Must have been from the alley. It smelled like rotten egg, and in the end, it required dunking the dog in the tub and forcing a bath on him.

When he’d managed to get the junk out of Cujo’s fur, Castle released the poor thing and let him jump out, running off to hide. Castle drained the tub and got back on his feet, found the ratty towel in the linen closet that Beckett kept for the dog. He discovered Cujo cowering under the dining room table, his usual spot, and dragged him out by a leg and a the collar.

“Sorry, can’t go running around the place like this. Come here.” Castle rubbed down the dog to dry him off. When Cujo was bristling and growling but finally no longer soaked to the bone, Castle let him go.

Cujo raced for the back hall and Beckett’s bedroom.

Castle didn’t follow, not yet. He dropped the towel in the hamper inside the bathroom, cleaned up the mess he and Cujo had made of the floor. He was on his hands and knees scrubbing the tile when he realized he felt seriously weak.

A shot and no supplements. His own damn fault for using the last of it here and not working out a way to steal replacements until now. 

He had hours before Mitchell could get away cleanly, and Eastman out there handling the clean up for Simmons’s guys with the police, whatever Deleware hadn’t managed (or had tried to set Castle up with his father). 

And he had Beckett in bed being rather cuddly. For her.

Castle ought to cut his losses. 

He heaved himself off his knees and tossed the sponge in the sink, and then he shuffled down the hallway to her bedroom. Cujo was at the foot of the bed, curled up tightly, but Castle’s side was saved by the body pillow.

He could probably stand to get some more sleep. Eight hours had healed his body but no supplements mean a lot had been taken out of him to do it. He had no way to replenish what his body needed - other than a damn lot of scrambled eggs - but that wasn’t happening.

Instead, he got in bed with Kate and slid the body pillow out from under her cast. He put the pillow on the other side, propped her cast on his chest instead, and drew her body into his own.

She was deeply asleep. She hadn’t even twitched.

Castle stroked the hair behind her ear and smoothed his thumb along her jaw.

He liked this a lot better than cleaning the bathroom floor.

\-----

There was noise and light and she was tugged up from the dark nothing.

Something moved, and she jerked away.

"No, it's okay, baby, okay. Just the front door."

"What?" she scraped out. Awareness came sharply and she bolted upright in bed. Castle was getting out, untangling his limbs from hers. "Wait. What?"

"It's Mitchell," he answered. "Hang on."

Hang on? No. Who? 

Kate tumbled out from bed, thudding an elbow on the bedside stand as she moved to look at the clock. It was a little after eight - night, day? - and she was wearing only a t-shirt. She scraped her leggings off the floor and pulled them on as she hurried forward, Castle already halfway down the hall.

Bra. Shit. Who was Mitchell? Eastman maybe, but random guy-

From the detail outside? Was that it. She couldn't get her brain working this morning, evening, whatever this was. Castle had been shot - no, beat up. He'd been beat up and then the shot, not a bullet, and they'd both kinda collapsed in bed after sex. Good sex. Really good sex. She couldn't remember the last time her release had been so-

"Hey, Mitch."

Kate hustled down the hall and met the man as he came through her door. He was nearly as tall as Castle, broad shouldered, but more track star than Castle's quarterback. His hair was darker than hers and his eyes were some mud color that held no interest. He was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, a backpack slung over his shoulders, and he could use a haircut.

Honestly, Castle could use one too. He'd let it grow out around his ears and it was floppy again. He looked kinda cute, young and eager.

Damn, he really did look cute. 

"Mitchell, this is Kate Beckett. Not sure you've been formerly introduced."

Kate narrowed her eyes at Castle, but she shook the hand Mitchell offered. "I guess you're one of the team sitting on my place." His handshake was firm even with that. "Sorry you're stuck with Deleware."

Mitch gave Castle a swift look and then came back to her. "Sorry you're stuck with Deleware."

Her lips twitched. 

"Okay, no standing in the foyer. Come on." Castle laid a hand at her back in a nudging gesture and she swatted him away, turning under her own power.

"I like him," she told Castle, jerking her thumb over her shoulder to Mitch. "He can stay."

"Let's hold off on the threesome, Beckett." 

She slanted her eyes to him and he gave her a look, long and thorough. She knew she should have gone for the bra. She elbowed Castle in the ribs for that and he huffed, clutching his side in an entirely false bid for sympathy. 

Mitchell followed them into the kitchen but Kate was arrested before the counter. "What is that - Castle. Did you cook something?"

"Crockpot."

Her mouth gaped open. He grinned and flicked his finger under her chin. 

"Smells good," Mitch said. "Damn, Castle. You been domesticated."

"Hardly," she snorted, leaning into the counter and inhaling. "But it does smell good. What is this?"

"Chicken and veggies. I don't know. I threw shit in until it looked right."

Mitchell hooted, slinging the backpack off his shoulders. "In for a fucking mess. No wonder you need this."

"He does surprisingly well," she defended, glancing at Mitch. He was tugging open the zipper on the bag. "What is it that he needs?"

"Just the pills," Castle said, sinking down at the bar. He scrubbed a hand down his face. "Vitamins."

She ignored the crockpot to head for the fridge, pulling a bottle of water off the bottom shelf. She passed it over and Castle reached across the bar to take it from her, giving her a faint thanks. Mitchell pulled two cases out of the bag and settled them both on the counter.

She knew the silver one.

Beckett took it off the bar and went back to the fridge, opening the freezer door and sliding the case back into its spot between the ice maker and the frozen vegetables - which were gone now too. Must be in her crockpot.

When she turned back around, Castle was chuckling and Mitchell looked stunned.

She shrugged and came around the bar to sit on the stool beside Castle's. He bumped shoulders with her even as he unlatched the black case, matte and dull, and she gaped at the rows and rows of pills wrapped into sterile sleeves and nestled in the foam. Castle took a sleeve out and popped it open, pushed two into his mouth, swallowed them down with the water.

She leaned in against his shoulder, let her eyes drift shut for a moment. The silence, the sound of him swallowing, the backpack being zipped back up.

She opened her eyes and glanced at Castle. He was watching her, and his hand came to her knee under the counter, squeezed. 

She roused, straightened up, gave him a smile. 

He kissed her, softly, and she butted her forehead into his. She'd meant to knock him away but instead she just leaned there a moment.

"Pain killer?" he whispered.

"I'm okay."

"Then let's talk to Mitch."

\----- 

Kate was leaning into him on the couch, which was strange for her, and he could have sworn she'd fallen asleep once or twice. They'd worked out the details of Mitchell's transfer, and Castle had used the laptop to set everything into motion. He was now emailing his father to explain the incident with Simmons's guys and how he was laying low until that blew over, how he'd had enough of the regimen to last, and he'd be into the Office the moment Eastman told him it was clear.

Kinda sorta throwing Eastman under the bus, but Castle knew Mark would be out of contact for a little while, getting it squared away with the police. He also was supposed to be coordinating with the FBI to form a fake task force about Vulcan's drug ring, which should bring Castle in on loan from military intelligence. Once he'd made a name for himself, and the drug ring had been closed down, then Castle would go from temporary to permanent inside the Twelfth Precinct.

Hopefully.

Kate didn't know all this, but Mitchell probably knew some. The man was sitting on the chair opposite and scrubbing his hands down his face as the enormity of what he'd done really began to sink it.

"He's gonna kill me for this."

"Black won't kill you," Castle answered easily. He had almost formulated the exact right tone - humble but certain, apologetic but brooking not arguments. "He needs good agents and you're good."

"If that's a compliment-"

"It's something. Besides, Beckett likes you, or she wouldn't have fallen asleep in front of you."

"I'm touched?" Mitchell sank back into the chair. "Seriously, how much have you told this girl?"

"She's a detective with the NYPD," Castle said quietly, hitting send on his email and closing the laptop. He glanced over at Kate, her face mashed into his shoulder, and he softly pushed her hair back behind her ear. "She knows everything."

"Not everything," Mitchell insisted.

"Yes." He carefully laid the laptop at his other side and lifted her casted arm into his lap, giving it a little more support. "Everything. My whole sorry life. What I do. Who I do it for."

"You're shitting me."

Castle shook his head and returned his focus to Mitch. "Look, my team will be necessarily small. I'll be doing special ops assigned by Black for time sensitive missions. No deep cover, only in and out excursions."

"Assassinations," Mitchell clarified. "Alright. I can do that."

"I know you can," Castle answered. "Or I wouldn't have requested you. No matter what you'd done for me."

Mitchell gave him a look but Castle ignored it. Truth needed to be spoken, keep things clear between them, or it would never work out. "Second: Beckett is never to be touched."

"I'm not Del," Mitchell muttered. "What do you think I'm gonna do-"

"Not you I'm worried about. But I hope you get my meaning. No one touches her, no one comes after her, no one from my life gets to fuck up hers. And there will be times when it is up to you to keep this place sacrosanct. Her life untouched."

"I'm pretty sure she wouldn't be happy hearing you say this."

"I'm pretty sure I don't care. We've already had enough close calls. Things have happened, Mitch. To her. But not any more. You, me, Eastman, that's our team - and if you're on my team, then you're on Beckett duty."

She stirred beside him, shifting as she heard her name being called. He cupped the side of her face and whispered love into her ear until she settled once more.

"Alright, fine," Mitchell finally answered. "Deleware just... fine. I can do that."

"Now tell me what Del said."

"I don't think that's a good idea. Nor is it appropriate."

Castle glared at him, using the force of his presence to make Mitch back down.

But Mitch wouldn't. He shook his head. "Nope. On Beckett duty right now and I think it would be detrimental to give you those details. But I will say that Deleware has pretty fucking vivid fantasies about showing her what her place is. Forcing her."

Castle's jaw clamped shut. His chest was painfully tight. "Forcing her."

Mitchell scrubbed a hand down his face and stared at his shoes. "Yeah."

"I'm gonna kill him."

"That might not be a good idea right now."

"If not now, then soon," Castle said. He felt the hollow, cold place in his chest already numbing over. How he might do it, how much pain he would inflict.

"Shit, man, your face goes dead when you talk about him. You're one scary motherfucker."

Castle gave Mitch a grim look. "He wants nothing more than to be the golden boy of the Agency, my father's right hand man. And because he can't, because that's my role, he wants to destroy everything in my life. Especially her."

"Wait. Wait. Hang on. Did you say your father?"

\-----

"Hey, babe? You awake? Dinner's ready. Hope so anyway."

Kate slitted her eyes and realized she was sprawled on the couch, a blanket thrown over her, the body pillow out here as well. She had no idea when that had happened, or when Mitchell had left either, but they were alone in the apartment and she could smell the chicken.

"Kate?"

"I'm awake," she mumbled. "I'm up."

"Stay there and we'll eat on the couch. I'll put it in bowls." He tousled her hair like a child and she swatted at him, forgetting the cast, clashing bone with hard plaster. 

"Shit, sorry-"

"No harm, no foul," he said, moving towards the kitchen. "Eastman called."

"Yeah?" She struggled to sit upright, shoving with her good hand and managing it just barely. "What'd he say?"

"NYPD took custody of the bodies. The-"

"Castle," she gaped. "That's not good! You-"

"No, it's fine. Listen. Eastman has a team - the FBI has taken over jurisdiction on this case per evidence you uncovered in the pursuit of your investigation."

"I never had any damn evidence, Rick. Just the word of my sergeant who has mysteriously taken early retirement."

"Not that early. Plus he's in WitPro now being grilled for all he's worth."

"He is?" She watched him come back with two bowls, two spoons, two water bottles, and her antibiotic. She grimaced but reached out with her good hand and took a bowl and spoon from him. He settled down right beside her, placing the body pillow over their laps as a kind of tray. 

Castle handed her a water, but took it back, untwisting the cap for her while she groaned. "Toughen up, baby. At least six more weeks of this."

"Fuck me," she sighed, but she dutifully sipped at her water, draining it enough that she could prop it at her hip and not worry it would spill at the least jostle.

"I have already," he said gravely. "But I am at your service."

She rolled her eyes but the laugh bubbled up as well, making her turn her head to bang her forehead against his shoulder.

"Babe. Come on. We need to talk about what's going on."

"I'm here. I'm listening," she muttered, arranging her bowl of shredded chicken and vegetables. It was almost like a pot pie. "Eastman has a fake FBI team appropriating the case into Vulcan Simmons. NYPD liaison is who?"

"Guy named Kevin Ryan. He's recently been undercover with drug related matters, no details, but he's our guy."

"Mm, okay. Don't know him."

"He's young. Younger than you."

"I'm not young," she sighed, scooping up the thick mixture and tentatively tasting it. "Salt?"

"I didn't. Want it?"

"And pepper maybe too."

"Right up." He kissed the side of head, kinda hard the bully, and then jumped up from the couch. She envied him those damn shots sometimes; she could really use a shot right now.

He came back with both salt and pepper, worked his way back to her side, arranging everything back into place. She took the two from him and gave the concoction a liberal dash of both, then handed them back.

He shook his head, leaned forward to place them on the table, then leaned back and propped his feet up. "Okay, so Ryan is our contact. Be you when you're back on duty, but there's still IAB to soften up."

"I thought that was taken care of?"

"Mostly. Almost all the way. One last interview before you return. And then sessions with King as your therapist."

"Yeah, shit. I need to schedule-"

"I asked him already, and he has some days next week clear."

"Damn bully."

"Mm, for you, I've dialed it down to merely controlling."

She laughed, elbowing him as she ate the pot pie sans pie. "This is good, Rick. You just threw shit together?"

"Basically. I mean I know now that some of that stuff goes together anyway in other recipes."

"Mitch was right. I have domesticated you. A little. Kinda." She wrinkled her nose and shook her head. "No, guess not. Maybe I've just got you whipped."

He barked a laugh that made Cujo come running, and Kate rubbed him down with her feet while Castle got a handle on his mirth.

"You do. Have me whipped. Yeah." He bumped his shoulder into hers and unearthed the remote from the couch. "Wanna watch something stupid?"

"Sure. You finished telling me about everything?" Why did she have the feeling he was tiptoeing around something pretty major?

"Finished. Oh, I have to go in at some point and smooth it over with my father, but that's later."

She sat up, studying him. More to that than he wanted to really face right now, and she could see it.

Well, later. She would get it out of him later. Make sure he was doing the right thing.

\-----


	7. Chapter 7

She was curled on the couch with him, her knees pulled up, back to the armrest while Castle caressed her ankles in his lap. She had been forced to settle a pillow across her thighs to rest the cast, and after that she had rested her cheek against the back of the couch and been unable to lift her head.

The television was playing some home design show, mindless entertainment that had absolutely nothing to do with either of their lives, but escapism for all that. He tugged at her ankle and repositioned her feet, started digging his thumb into her arch.

“Ah, shit,” she groaned. “That feels good.”

“Yeah? Good. I’m an expert foot massager.”

She slitted an eye at him. “And who have you been practicing on?”

“You?”

“Nope. Try again.”

“No?” he gasped. His thumb dug hard and she jerked, the tension popping in her arch. 

“No. Not ever before.”

“No way.”

“Way,” she said, lips tilting up.

“Well, then I have no idea who I’ve been practicing on,” he said, chuckling. “Honestly, I swear I’ve rubbed your feet before.”

“Was I passed out unconscious?”

“Could be. That does happen rather frequently with us.”

“I’m kind of a magnet for danger, aren’t I?” she said, wrinkling her nose. 

He laughed. “No, baby. I’m a sex god.”

She laughed back, wincing as his knuckles ground into the ball of her foot. “Shit, that’s good. Really. I’d have remembered this.”

“Maybe I just always want to massage your feet and lose my nerve.”

She leaned her cheek against the couch again. “What else you want to do and lose your nerve?”

“Baby you.” She kicked at him and he grinned. “See?”

“Do I look like a baby?” she muttered.

“Yeah. My baby.” 

She kicked him again, but he had a firm grip on her ankle, and she couldn’t do much damage. Not that she really wanted to damage him, but- “You’re an ass. All your girls get foot massages but me?”

Castle chuckled. “Hey, remember that huge fight we had because you accused me of having a girl on every continent?”

She froze. 

He lowered her foot and switched to the other one, began digging his knuckles in. He wasn’t looking at her, concentrating on her foot, but she pulled the cast into her chest and tried to breathe.

Whatever came next. Whatever he said. Her fault for believing, her fault for letting him-

“Wasn’t that the best sex ever?” he grinned, his eyes lifting to hers. “Mind blowing.”

She croaked an agreement, her breath rushing out of her lungs.

He bent her toes back and rubbed the ball of her foot. “I feel like that was my turning point. That changed me. I mean, hot as fuck sex, you came so hard - I came so hard-”

“More than once,” she husked.

His grin twitched. “More than once. More than twice. Something claiming in it, I think, that made it so hot. But I feel like that was my turning point. That changed me.”

She stared at him. “Changed you how?”

He ground his thumb into her arch, all while caressing over her foot and to her ankle. “I’m here so little, love. Our fight and that sex after, it made me see things clearly, what I was doing to you.”

“Doing to me. You weren’t - you aren’t doing-”

“I made myself, and you, a promise. I was gonna be the best I could for you when I was here... because I was here so little.”

Was?

“When I’m here, Kate...”

She wasn’t sure why her chest was so tight, why she had her knees pressed together and her cast against her stomach.

“When I’m here, baby, I want to be someone you can rely on. Someone who has your back, who’ll fight with you. Who will fight for you. And sometimes that means I bully you around, fight you for you-”

“Fight me for me?”

“For you to rest,” he said quietly. “For you to eat, to think it through, to come up with a plan, to be better than you are. And I know that’s not being cool. I know you’re not okay with me being permanent in your life, but it’s been three years, baby. You’ve come so far, in your job, despite me, and I’ve come so far - emotionally, I think, spiritually - you’ve taught me how to be in this with someone, even if I’m really terrible at being able to stay.”

She was shaking. She had to press both hands to her chest to keep him from seeing it.

“You know there are no other girls, love.”

She let out a breath and a short nod. No other girls.

“You’ve ruined me for anyone, anything else.”

Ruined him. “I don’t want you ruined,” she rasped.

“Ruined in a good way,” he said softly. His smile was so - so tender towards her. Like he was giving her bad news and he wanted to apologize.

“But you - still do your job?”

“It’s made me pretty damn creative,” he said, his grinning wolfish now. “Made me better. I have always been at the top of my game, but you challenged me, you do challenge me, make me fight for it.”

“Richard-”

“No. You don’t get to interrupt. I need to be honest with you for once. I’m tired of pretending we aren’t doing this. We’re doing this alright. You and me. Been doing it.”

She closed her eyes and bowed her head forward, and he leaned in and snaked his arm around her, dragged her over to his side of the couch.

“You don’t have to say anything. You don’t have to accept it either. Just don’t try kicking me out, baby. I’ll only come back.”

She choked on a sob or a laugh and curled her arm around his neck, pressing close to him.

He caressed her arm above the cast and cradled all of her. “I know it’s not fair of me to tell you all this while you’re on pain pills and you’ve been shot, I know. I don’t need anything from you, nothing different at all. Just want you as you are, love.”

But she was no good to anyone as she was.

\-----

He considered it a supreme gesture of love that she fell asleep on top of him after that.

She hadn't said a word, one way or another, but as the television had droned on, she'd stopped pretending she was watching it and had burrowed into him. With the blanket pulled up around her shoulders and the body pillow wedged between himself and the back of the couch, it was like an oven. But he wasn't moving her. And she wasn't moving either.

Her face was against his chest, turned to the back of the couch, her casted arm resting on the body pillow but her other arm had twined around his waist and pressed her close. Her fingers were hooked in the waistband of his combat pants. Her body was entirely sacked out.

And yeah, okay, he'd tricked her into taking a pain pill. Not an antibiotic. The antibiotic wasn't scheduled until later tonight. He would feel bad about it, but it was obvious to him now that she'd stayed awake while he'd been under the influence of the regimen. 

Not cool, Beckett. But damn, he felt good thinking about why she'd been up with him. Watching over him. Protective of him. That felt good to untangle just as much as it did that she'd cuddled up with him on the couch even after he'd laid on her a ton of emotional shit. 

She loved him back.

She might not be happy about it, and she might not have wanted to, but she fought it so hard because she'd fallen so hard. He could see it; he wasn't stupid when it came to women. Well, almost. He was so often dense when it came to her because he wanted her so badly, because she made him totally not cool, but he knew when things were getting serious.

Usually serious was a serious problem. Serious meant he'd have to extricate himself. Serious meant promises he broke and lies he told. Serious meant he was seducing a weak target for access. 

But serious also meant an asset for life, an undying loyalty, and the certainty of having one person in a city who could be relied on for resources. It was an analytical way to look at people, a cold way, but it didn't make it not true about her either.

She had proved those things every time he'd come to her. But it had gone so far beyond asset. From the beginning, he hadn't been grooming her. Merely wanting her. Needing her, like finding a safe haven, like coming up for air. She was, coldly, an asset. But she was also a-

partner.

She had his back, she was strong where he was weak. She'd been shot because she never stopped going after it, because she had principles and morals she'd die for. He had a job that he excelled at and so kept doing, no real love of anything but her.

So. Where did that leave him? Them?

He'd been honest with her, and he was being honest with himself. He was going to assume an identity at the Twelfth not just to be closer, to be dependable, but also to partner with her in finding her mother's murderer. Knowing as he did that certain elements of her mother's death coincided with his father's elite team back in Afghanistan had only convinced him more that it was vital he was here, that he guide this investigation, that he guide her, that she had back-up in this. Because she would figure it out; it was only a matter of time.

He was here. He would stay here, no matter the cost. His father had leveraged this self-assignment against him, had played the power game, and Castle would have to do things that had become troubling to him since he'd met her. It wasn't that black ops teams were comprised of morally bankrupt individuals, but that Castle now saw the ways in which his killing affected whole families and situations, the way any death diminished the world. The blood-thirsty dictator or the sex-trafficker might be doing more to harm the world than his meager contributions, but Castle now had a conscience that prodded him.

Prodded him in her voice. 

The job was worthy, and he did the hard work that most people couldn't do, and he saved peoples, cultures, countries, even the world. But without her, it was joyless. Without her it was worthless. Without her, it no longer made sense.

He had to protect that, her. He had to nurture this thing between them. But.

He had to go in. He would receive his punishment from his father, whatever the man wanted to dole out, and he would take it like a man (in love). He would make this right again. He knew the balance of power had shifted between himself and his father and he knew Black would do something severe and final to regain that power unless Castle gave it back to him.

He could not let Beckett be caught in the crossfire. Above all else, she had to remain off the board.

He just wasn't sure how to do that.

But he had bought himself some time. The pills were giving him back his strength and endurance, and he had Mitchell in his pocket to keep him up to date, and he had Eastman handling the NYPD issue with Simmons. He had time with her.

He would submit to his father tomorrow.

\-----

She woke the next morning in her bed with the light spilling gently through the window. The blinds weren't closed, the curtains weren't drawn, the sun was just beginning to rise.

She felt cotton-mouthed and draggy, but it was morning and she'd slept since eight o'clock last night apparently, and it was time to get the fuck out of bed.

She moved but Castle was on her.

Pinned by the weight of his shoulder against her back. Her left arm was supported by the body pillow, and she could feel the heat of the dog at her feet. Castle was asleep, which was rare, but maybe he was still recovering.

She'd had stupid thoughts before about going to Black and asking him to teach her. For Castle's sake. Because Castle kept coming to her. But she'd always stopped herself from trying to contact him. (Mostly because she had no contact for him. She could've asked Eastman; she should ask Eastman. She would do that the next time he came around to baby-sit her.)

Kate finally tugged out from under him, but of course it woke Castle. He grunted and snaked his arm around her instead, tried dragging her back, half asleep. His nose nuzzled down into her neck and fingers fumbled at her breast. And suddenly she was in that weird place between arousal and weakness, where her physical body just couldn't handle what it wanted so badly.

His fingers cupped her breast. His erection was insistent at her thigh.

She groaned and accidentally knocked into him with her cast. Didn't deter him. She wasn't even sure he was fully awake.

His lips hummed against her neck and she shivered.

"No," she huffed, elbowing him off her. "Coffee first. I feel like shit."

Castle jerked awake instantly, pushing off the mattress to stare down at her. "You feel like shit?"

"No, not - I just need some fucking caffeine, Castle." But his alertness allowed her to escape, and she slid out of bed and stood wavering on her own feet. He looked so forlorn, so disappointed with himself that she couldn't help reaching out and ruffling his hair. "Come make me breakfast. I'll be up for it as soon as the caffeine hits my blood."

He blinked but he untangled himself from the bed and began to follow her. She snapped her fingers for Cujo and the dog jumped up and followed her as well, threading the hallway to arrive ahead of her at the kitchen.

She opened the pantry for coffee and dog food both, but Castle nudged her out of the way and scooped the dog food himself. She carried her coffee to the machine and popped open the top, the sounds of dry dog food poured into a plastic bowl somehow comforting. Normal routines. He usually fed the dog in the morning, walked him, when he was here.

Felt good to be normal.

His hands came to her hips and put her away, gently, taking over at the coffee maker as well. She didn't mind; he did it better than she did, somehow, and it left her free to scrounge the counter for her meds.

The dog was scarfing down his food. Castle usually started her coffee and then took Cujo out, and she didn't expect any differently this morning. She might get a shower while he was downstairs, try to sneak that in alone. 

She found the antibiotic and popped open the top, gaped at the brownish yellow pill. "Richard fucking Castle."

He turned at her demand, hands arrested at the coffeemaker. "Oh."

"Oh?" she hissed. "You gave me a pain pill last night, didn't you? Fucking bastard."

"I mixed them up?"

"Don't fucking lie. I know when you're lying."

"You do?" he grinned. He jabbed the button on the coffeemaker and came right to her, trapping her against the counter with his erection pressing into her stomach. "You do. Don't you?" His lips grazed her neck. "You know all about me."

"Don't make this romantic, you fucking asshole. You switched them. You told me it was the antibiotic to drug me."

"Only a little drugging. For your own good. I did warn you last night I was doing that."

"You don't get to say what's for my own good. That is up to me to decide."

"But it was on the schedule, the pain management schedule."

"So you tricked me?" she growled. His teeth were making her cunt contract. Shit. "I'd have taken my own damn pain pill-"

"No, you wouldn't have. Because did you try to take any last night?"

"I didn't feel any fucking pain. I didn't have time-"

"I took care of it," he hummed against her throat. Her heart was thundering and she realized she was gripping his back too tightly, her cast against his ribs. He shifted a thigh between her legs and she moaned. "I took care of you. I always take care of you."

"Fuck," she whispered.

His thigh was insistent. She rocked against him, unable to catch her breath. "You - fucking - you fucking asshole. Always - always doing this to me."

"I won't do it again." His lips sucked at the skin just below the collar of her t-shirt, stretching it out. All of her shirts were stretched out like this, because of him. "If you forgive me. If you take the pills on schedule."

"Can't do it again now that I know," she managed. She sounded breathy and undone and worked up, didn't she? She sounded like she was rocking against his thigh and begging to come.

Because she was.

He guided her hips, tilting them down against his leg, and she cried out, felt it building tightly in her belly. Castle palmed her breast and twisted her nipple, and she came in a fierce little burst, relief cascading down through her whole body as it worked its way out.

She was shivering and limp against him when she finally pressed her hand to his chest. He stepped back, touched her elbow above the cast. "Coffee's ready, love. I'm taking Cujo out."

He kissed the corner of her mouth and inhaled softly near her jaw. 

She knew he was smelling her arousal, the bastard.

She couldn't even be mad at him any more.

\-----

She was still humming to herself when he came back upstairs with the dog. Cujo bounded into the kitchen and into her legs, and Castle watched her give the dog her love (he was not jealous, no), and then Kate kicked Cujo away from her and brought a coffee mug his way.

Castle blinked and it took from her hands, stunned by the gesture. Or the - thoughtfulness? She'd thought of him.

She pressed in close and nudged her nose into his neck, took a breath. "Drink up, sexy."

Well, fuck, he had nearly spilled the whole damn thing. "Shit, Beckett."

She chuckled and nipped at his jaw, her teeth tugging his five o'clock shadow. He wrapped an arm around her and tugged her close (closer), and haphazardly swigged his coffee. It was hot and it burned his tongue and the roof of his mouth and his throat as it went down, but she was sliding her fingers over the bulge in his sweatpants.

"Shit, shit," he rasped.

"You started it. Wanna finish?"

"Shit," he groaned, gripping the coffee mug too tightly.

She hummed and teased her fingers at his waistband, sliding under, back and forth while her mouth placed wet, hot kisses against his neck and jaw. "You get enough?"

"Never," he croaked.

She laughed and kissed the corner of his mouth. "Coffee, love."

"Yeah, done, enough, let me fuck you."

She grinned against his cheek and immediately sank her hand inside his boxers, cupped him. His hips bucked and he groaned, slammed the coffee mug onto the entry table in the hallway.

"Might have to do this on the couch," he rasped. "Not sure I can get you all the way to your bed."

"Want me to swallow?"

"Fuck," he cursed, bodily lifting her and moving her to the couch. "Yes. No. Yes, I don't know. Just want you. Once inside you at the very fucking least-"

"You got it, baby." Her fingers were killing him, and her body was hot against his own, thighs clamped at his hips. He stumbled down into the couch and began pulling at her t-shirt, the leggings, unable to get a good grip. She rucked up his t-shirt with one hand, her fingers still fondling his cock, and he lifted his hips to get the damn sweatpants off.

She rode his upward movement and shifted to let him, use the heel of her foot to shove his sweats down. Boxers went with them, and he was gloriously vulnerable to her now.

She squeezed him and rocked forward. He dragged off his shirt and she immediately leaned in, sucked at his nipple and flicked it with her tongue.

"Fuck, Kate, ah, God, you always know how to get me." He had to clamp his hands on her hips and press her closer, harder, and she nipped at him. 

His body jerked like he’d been electrocuted and she chuckled, dragging her tongue up his sternum before sucking on his neck. He swallowed fast and she hummed in pleased pride, but she still didn’t have her fucking shirt off. Or the leggings. 

Kate rubbed her palm and fingers down his chest and back up again, the abrasion of her cast on his nipple making him curse.

She slid off his lap and dragged her casted arm over the top of his thigh, pressed her fingers behind his knee.

“Baby,” he croaked. But she was already circling his cock with her good hand, leaning in and touching her lips to his shaft. “Aw, love. Love-”

Her lips rubbed against his cock. “I love that. The way you can’t even get out my name.”

“Shit. K-Kate.”

She licked up his shaft and he had to grab for her, hand fisting in her hair, just to hang on.

She opened her mouth and sucked on his head, making his hips jerk up. She had her casted arm braced on his thigh and her fingers tickled at his abs, just below his navel, so that he was inundated with sensation. Her mouth on his cock, sucking and swirling and heat and the fucking pressure of her tongue pressing up against him. 

“Oh, fuck,” he harshed, knee jerking as she swallowed him down. “Fuck. I can’t - I’m gonna come. Right now. Fuck-”

She pressed her teeth into him and rubbed her tongue along the underside of his shaft. His nostrils flared and his whole body went tense, the ragged edge of his orgasm beginning to peak.

She reached in and caressed his balls, cupped them in her hand.

“Beckett,” he growled.

Before he could get a handle on it, she was sucking on his cock and kneading his balls and he was coming hot and hard in her mouth. She drank him down, milking his cock with her fist, and he couldn’t help the way his hips jerked into the vicious heat of her mouth.

\-----

He wasn’t sure. For a long time he had no idea. Who, what, where. Those essential orientation questions were completely unanswered, and he knew that was bad. That his life depended on knowing who he was, what he was pretending to be, and where the wreck of his whole body had happened.

And then heat pressed into him, naked, breasts, wet - so fucking wet - heat. 

“Kate,” he groaned.

She was fondling his cock. She was naked and fondling him, petting him with little touches of her fingers. He was quickly stiffening again, thickness bringing him alive, and his eyes opened.

She was giving him that cat-ate-the-canary smile, lips together and smirking, her eyes shining. “You with me now?”

“Not sure,” he said roughly, palming her ass. Her hips bumped into him and he kneaded the flesh under his hands, dragging her closer. His cock pressed up into her sex, that slick wonderful heat, and she hooked her injured arm around his neck to rub up and down against him.

“You’re so hard already,” she husked. Her eyes were slitted, heavy with arousal, and her good hand traveled down her own body and circled her clit. “You feel so damn good between my legs.”

“You’re killing me,” he groaned, leaning in to claim her mouth. She moaned into him and rode up, still teasing his cock with the heat of her slit. He gripped her ass to get her to move along, but she seemed intent on making him spill his load between their bodies.

She broke from his mouth with a pant and tilted her head back, her throat working like she was swallowing down air. He brought a hand around and roughly squeezed her breast.

Kate’s head snapped up, eyes flaring open. “Fuck. Fuck. That’s it, baby. Harder.”

He scraped his thumb over her nipple and began to twist it. She cried out and rose to her knees, suddenly palmed his cock. He growled her name, already tight with need, and she rocked her hips in the air, seeking him.

He touched himself, cursing her as he found her wet fingers around his cock. He lifted his thumb and touched her sex and she whimpered, her head bowing forward until their foreheads bumped together.

“Oh, baby,” she whispered. “I can’t wait. Don’t make me wait.”

“No more, no more waiting,” he roughed. “Slide down on me, sweetheart.”

She wavered, and he gripped her ass to keep her steady. Kate whined as he penetrated her sex, that tight opening that always seemed to resist him at first. 

“Come on, love, you know you need a good fuck.”

She whimpered, something like his name, something like begging, but the amazing way she sank down on him couldn’t be rushed.

“Move,” she moaned. “Need you, need you to fuck me. Please.”

He slipped his fingers around his cock to rub her folds and she cried out, arching. Her breasts thrust into his face and he took her nipple in his mouth, sucking hard as she came down on him.

He bit her breast as his cock hit home, both of them going still, arms and legs taut, muscles quivering with the exquisite feel of him inside her.

“Fuck me, fuck me,” she chanted. Whether it was a command or a curse, didn’t matter. He heard the urgency in her voice - and the wonder. He lifted his head from her breast, tormenting her nipple as his teeth let go, and she shivered.

He moved his hand up her side and cupped her face, fingers pushing her hair back. Her eyes were liquid gold, chocolate and sunlight, and he kissed her open mouth. “You’re so beautiful.”

“This is amazing,” she whispered. Her lashes laced together. When she opened her eyes again, they were shining. Wet. “How did I ever - get you?” She leaned in to kiss him and it changed their angle just enough that his cock pushed deeper and bottomed out.

She keened his name into his mouth, her body quaking now, her inside muscles contracting around him like a fist. 

He rubbed his fingers around himself and her folds, found her clit with him thumb. She whimpered, tensing, and he crushed her clit against the width of his cock.

Kate cried out, jerking into him, and then her orgasm swept over her. She was writhing in his arms and he hadn’t even moved, he couldn’t move, she was grinding down on him to milk the last of it.

He grit his teeth and tried so damn hard to hold on, but his own climax built up inside him and came roaring out. His bellow of her name was caught in the clash of their teeth and he sucked on her tongue, desperately, as he unloaded inside her.

\-----


End file.
